Interactive lesson

Protecting fruit trees without chemicals, step by step

Interactive lesson: from orchard hygiene, birds and beneficial insects to traps, bands and the safe use of copper and sulphur with harvest intervals.

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The whole lesson as text

1. Prevention first

A disease needs a susceptible plant, a pathogen and favourable weather, and prevention attacks all three.

Sun and air — Spacing and an airy canopy. Leaves dry faster after rain, and fungi need wet leaves.
Mummies off the branches — Take dried, rotten fruit off the branches. Brown rot waits in them for spring.
Windfalls — Pick up maggoty windfalls every 2–3 days. Up to 10–15 % maggoty apples is acceptable: they go into juice, fruit butter and drying.
Wood and leaves — Take diseased wood out of the orchard. Rake up or shred scabby fallen leaves.

Why: Spraying attacks only the pathogen. A resistant variety, pruned to an airy shape and kept clean underneath, gets through most years with little or no spraying.

Ask about resistance when you plant: many heritage varieties and newer scab-resistant varieties get by without spraying.
Too much nitrogen gives soft, lush leaves that attract aphids and disease.

2. Birds and beneficial insects

Allies work all season for free, if they have a home and food and you don't poison them.

Nest box for tits — A 25–32 mm hole, 2–4 m up, facing east or south-east. Tits eat caterpillars, codling moth larvae and eggs.
Flower strip — Ladybirds, lacewings and hoverflies eat aphids. Parasitic wasps need small flowers: carrot, dill, coriander.
Hedge and an unmown corner — A hedge of hawthorn, dogwood and hazel gives birds places to nest. Leave one corner unmown too.
Hens under the trees — Hens peck codling moth and cherry fruit fly pupae out of the soil and eat windfalls. Rotate them under the trees.

Why: One pair of great tits brings its young thousands of caterpillars during the nesting season. A ladybird and its larva eat hundreds of aphids. Insecticides "just in case" kill exactly these.

If you plant the orchard on a bare field, put up nest boxes from the first year.
Bats eat night-flying moths, codling moth included: a bat box goes on a wall or tree.