The Kaolin Clay Strategy for Orchards

Thorough coverage with the refined kaolin clay

keeps fruit-eating pests at bay.
Surround kaolin clay spray has given organic orchardists an effective tool for an array of petal
fall pests that destroy fruit when it's the size of a marble. Yet, as always, a good thing can be
overdone. Understanding the nuance and the timing of this barrier spray strategy makes a
reasonable harvest possible.
Good Research
Work done in the 1920's and 1930's with pottery-grade kaolin proved unsatisfactory, as plant
health suffered and insects still maneuvered through the large (relatively-speaking) clay
particles. Enter in soil scientist Mike Glenn of the USDA Appalachian Fruit Research Station
with an idea to use refined kaolin for orchard disease control. A drastic reduction in insect
damage at petal fall was noted as a result. Horticultural benefits have followed from there.
Disease control remains elusive, as the formulation is not hydrophobic.
Surround: A Corporate Product
A super-magnetic centrifuge in Georgia is used to refine the impurities out of raw kaolin and
then filter the clay particles to a critical 1.4 microns in size. Only corporate money can
achieve this, and that makes for a patented product that costs what it costs. Take note:
Pottery grade kaolin will not work like Surround has been designed to work.
The Petal Fall Complex (Timing)
Orchardists in the East face three devastating pests at about the time the blossom petals begin
to fall from the trees en masse. European Apple Sawfly begins laying its eggs while
pollinating the white apple flowers: The successive instar stages of its young wipe out 3 to 4
fruitlets per larvae. Plum curculio (long called the Achille's heel of organic orcharding) waits
for warm evenings when females begin laying 4 to 5 eggs per day and both males and females
make feeding stings. Codling moth egg hatch begins about ten days after petal fall,
completing this triad of potential devastation. Full coverage of Surround needs to be built up
at initial petal fall for best results with all three insects.

Kaolin particles make life less than pleasant for fruit pests like this pear psylla. (photo:
Michael Glenn, USDA Appalachian Fruit Research Station)
Three Coat Effectiveness
Surround serves in one of two ways as an insect repellant. Just imagine your eye and ear
openings filled with irritating clay particles, and your reproductive parts literally clogged . . .
surely you'd want to boogie from such a place! This is the experience of insects like curculio
that crawl about the twigs and leaf surface seeking fruitlets. Flying insects don't get quite the
same experience, flitting about to lay an egg here and there. Upon landing on a kaolin-coated
tree, the codling moth female senses a wrong environment and continues on.
This next point cannot be over emphasized: Surround proves effective only once 3 uniform
applications have been made. There's enough clay at this point to actually stop the early instar
stages of sawfly larvae from going much beyond the winding scar trail of its first apple. One
coat of clay is simply not enough coverage to actually deter the insect's normal inclinations.
Make back-to-back applications to get to this launching point of successful orcharding.
Coverage then needs to be maintained weekly for approximately four weeks. Heavy rain may
necessitate additional applications.
Spray Rates
Label instructions recommend a rate of 25# to 50# of Surround per acre per application.
Whether you mix this in 50 gallons of water or 200 gallons of water is determined by sprayer
type and the size of the trees on your acre. Coverage needs to be applied to the point of runoff
and allowed to dry. A sticker-spreader isn't necessary, and in fact, experiments with vegetable
oils to improve kaolin's holding power have decreased efficacy. These particles have been
engineered specifically to come off readily onto the crawling insect! The coverage provided
by a hand-held wand spray rig is often superior to an air-blast sprayer simply because you
take more time per tree to achieve a full coat. Home orchardists with a backpack sprayer can
figure on using 1/4 to 1/2# per gallon of water, gauging the coverage more by point of run-off
than by a hypothetical amount per acre. Surround stirs best into the water as opposed to
pouring water into the dry powder. Agitation in the spray tank should keep sediment from
clogging the pump . . . backpackers may need to jump about a bit!

Western growers use Surround

primarily to prevent sunburn.
Enhanced Photosynthesis
Lessening of sunburn, increased fruit size and better color, and even improved return bloom
are among the claims made for Surround. But all these benefits aren't necessarily going to
come about in northern zones with shorter growing seasons.
Drawbacks
Prolonged kaolin coverage is harsh on mite predators. Overdo this spray strategy and you'll
likely induce a red mite flare-up, which will necessitate returning to using dormant oil sprays
prior to quarter-inch green. Don't be tempted to continue kaolin coverage for secondgeneration moths and apple maggot fly! This petal fall tool falls out of balance as regards
beneficials if coverage is maintained too long. Plus then the problem of residues at harvest
time is a major, major headache.
Trap Tree Rationale
Some orchardists have observed that curculio seems to wait out the coverage. That four weeks
should perhaps be six or more weeks of coverage. The problem arises when we ponder the
options for curculio. A complete whiteout of their environment leaves little choice but to wait
for improved opportunity. Surround repels; it doesn't kill. A wise orchardist will select a trap
tree or two, or leave some unsprayed wild trees in the proximity. We truly need to learn that
there's a place for all species on this good earth if we want to reach that next plateau of sound
thinking. Which doesn't mean plummeting curc larvae can't be met by a waiting chicken flock
pecking away down on the ground!
Sources
Gardens Alive sells 5# quantities of Surround labeled for home use at about three times the
going trade price. Be smart with your money and get the 25# bag: kaolin keeps for years, so
even if you have only a tree or two to protect, you're supplied for several seasons. Seven
Springs Farm in Virginia has the best mail order price going: See 7springsfarm.com.
Northeastern growers should check with Organic Grower Supplies in Maine: all the FEDCO
cooperatives offers substantial discounts based on order volume. United Ag Products also
distributes Surround in its regional warehouses serving

Core Holistic Recipe

The "active ingredients" found in the core recipe for maintaining orchard health are green
immune stimulants and competitive colonization. The use of pure neem oil, unpasteurized
liquid fish, seaweed, and a diverse complex of microbes (be it a probiotic culture or aerated
compost tea) achieves many things. This is primarily a nutritional brew for surface microbes
and foliar uptake that also happens to stimulate the production of phytochemicals used by
plants to ward off disease. Maintaining a competitive arboreal environment seals the deal:
Pathogenic organisms have little chance when there's no room at the inn.
It takes anywhere from 100-250 gallons of spray to cover an acre of fruit trees to the point of
runoff. The size of one's trees and canopy phase determines how far a given volume will go.
The numbers given here are based on recommended "acreage rates" for each product. The
pivotal requirement in working with higher spray volumes is to maintain the pure neem oil
concentration at 0.5% (or slightly less for sensitive pear varieties) accordingly.
Home orchard rates. This assumes a 4-gallon backpack sprayer is used to cover so many
trees to the point of runoff. Mix 2.5 ounces of pure neem oil with a generous teaspoonful of
soap emulsifier to achieve a 0.5 percent neem concentration. Add 10 ounces of liquid fish and
6 ounces of mother culture of effective microbes to the water filling the spray tank. Dissolve
as much as a half cup of blackstrap molasses in warm water to launch those hungry critters.
Backpack applications should also include 5 tablespoons of liquid kelp or half an ounce (dry
weight) of the seaweed extract.