John, thank you for your response.

We are still learning how to use the Dormex. We went over to South Africa a few years ago to learn from them, as we could not find anyone in Australia with the knowledge we were after.

They had us trialing multiple spray dates and rates. We even went right in until we had green buds. The best result we got last year was at 35 days at 0.75% Dormex and 3% oil. That did not work this year, but we did most of the orchard at 0.5% Dormex and 3% oil. This was the timing and rate that one of the South African consultants thought would probably work best in our situation.

It did nothing for our flowering as unsprayed (although there may have been overspray) trees gave the same result.

There was no bud drop, so we did not actually kill the buds. They just came out as leaf. This got me thinking that the decision as to whether it would be leaf or flower was made back at floral initiation.

We would have still had an overload of chloride in the tree at that time.

You made a comment about timing the Dormex to not bring the leaf break forward to compete with the flowering. How do you achieve this?