Starting out with minimal residues production

• Try the ZRMS system on a few orchards initially.
• Choose orchards with a low incidence of pest and disease.
• Start the system post-harvest in the autumn so that dormant season treatments have been implemented to minimise the pest and disease carry over.
• Rigorous pest and disease monitoring is essential so ensure that suitable qualified personnel are committed to doing it.
• Inspections for apple scab at blossom and petal-fall are critical in order to decide whether to proceed with the ZRMS programme or continue conventionally so ensure that they are made.
• Ensure that pest and disease monitoring from petal-fall to harvest is undertaken to spot any potential problems early in case treatment intervention is needed.
• For scab susceptible varieties or in orchards in areas of high rainfall or in high risk seasons, a more flexible approach may be required and the use of conventional control programmes may need to be extended for a couple of spray rounds after petal fall to ensure adequate control is achieved.
• For powdery mildew, in high risk situations, additional spray rounds beyond the end of petal fall would be necessary to provide improved control and fungicide dose and spray interval may need to be adjusted accordingly.
• Based on research findings, growers following this system can be more relaxed about the incidence of rots in store, but rot risk assessments in orchards should be made routinely leading up to harvest. The AHDB Horticulture Rot Risk Assessment training DVD should be employed to teach staff how to make such assessments.
• For pest control, particular attention should be reserved for woolly aphid and mussel scale. For these pests, there may be a need to extend conventional control programmes beyond petal fall and then to extend the harvest interval to be sure of avoiding residues.
• If conventional product intervention post petal fall proves to be essential for any pest or disease, then extending the harvest interval of products used in this post-blossom period will help to ensure minimal residues or residue free fruit.