UConn Extension Vegetable IPM Pest Message & Reports from the Farm, Friday

September 18th, 2015

[Comments or answers in brackets are provided by Jude Boucher, UConn Extension]

Jude Boucher, UConn Extension This is the last weekly IPM Pest Message and Report from the Farm this season. I’d like to thank all who participated by sending in pictures and reports, or by allowing us to publish a synopsis of my IPM farm visits. By sharing, the lessons benefit many growers beyond your own farm. I will try to get a couple of workshops together for this winter which will be announced later in the Crop Talk Newsletter that you all receive by being on this list serve. But I wanted to remind you about the two larger conferences this winter: Dec. 15-17, New England Vegetable & Fruit Conference (and Trade Show). Radisson Hotel, Manchester, NH. This is the premier conference for our industry in this region with 32 educational sessions, Farmer-to-Farmer Discussion Groups, Social Mixers and a Trade show with over 100 Exhibitors. There are just over 100 rooms left at the Radisson as of yesterday. Use the code “NEVF15” to get the conference room rate. Our Registration Chairman assures me that on-line registration will be available very soon: www.newenglandvfc.org. Jan. 21, Connecticut Vegetable & Small Fruit Growers’ Conference. Maneeley’s Conference Center, South Windsor, CT. Over 300 of your fellow growers attended last year. 30 Trade Show Exhibits. Pre-registration will be announced later this fall.

Steve Bengtson, Cold Spring Brook Farm, Berlin, CT CEW count rose this week to 0.85 moths per night putting us on a five day schedule. ECB traps were both empty again this week. [6 brown marmorated stink bugs were captured this week near Steve’s tomatoes. This is a low population but indicated the pest is present on the farm]. Flea beetle and leafhopper have shown up in our eggplant field. [Wow, this is really late for leafhoppers (threshold is 1-1.5/leaf on eggplant)! A neonicotinoid, such as Admire, would remove both, but I know you are close to finishing up for the season, so it may not be worthwhile.]

http://www.newenglandvfc.org/

White fly have shown up in our kalettes. Do you have any suggestions for control? Warrior label says for suppression only. [Most products are not registered for use on kalettes, since it is a new crop (combo of kale and B. sprouts). The lone exception I could find is M-Pede which is registered for Brassica crops and uses the hedge words “such as …” Another grower tried M-Pede a couple of weeks ago and it failed to reduce the numbers. This crop seems to be the only crop that attracts high numbers of cabbage whiteflies. Since both farms growing kalettes have the same problem, one might wonder if it is worth growing this niche crop – do the whiteflies spread to other Brassica crops?]

Adult cabbage whitefly

Cabbage whitefly nymphs and pupae (flattened and stationary).

Fred Monahan, Stone Garden Farms, Shelton, CT

CEW in last two fields=3/night [puts them on a 4-day schedule on fresh silking corn].

ECB=2 plus one stink bug?? [no spray required on peppers]

I used generic Warrior (grizzly) on all FAW this year and results are that grizzly does not wipe out all

worms. We have FAW damage in some blocks, and it hurts because we are still selling corn and the

drought did effect the yields of these blocks. So, a word to the wise is don’t use grizzly for FAW. I

switched to Coragen for last few blocks and this young corn is clean.

We did lose a lot of ears to the drought because they never sized up and were unmarketable, but the up

side to this is that we do have beef cows and pigs and they love the corn, so even if we couldn’t sell the

ears we can sell the meat. One more reason to be diversified.

Peppers have no signs of BLS and I sprayed once with copper back when I sprayed for pepper maggot.

These seeds were heat treated and again I can’t say enough about the heat treatment.

All peppers and eggplants were under drip irrigation during the drought and we were barely keeping

them alive and producing. The plants aborted most flowers due to the stress but have recovered nicely

since the rain last week and we are now seeing young fruit develop, I don’t know if they will mature

enough but they look a lot better this week than last.

We seeded 7 acres of cover crop following the rain - hoping it germinates and grows enough to use this

rye and wheat for a fall pasture for the beef cows.

No aphids on anything??

Cucurbits looking great for fall, cukes have no sign of downy. We alternate Ranman, Tanos, and Presidio,

all seem to have been doing their job.

Still picking an abundance of pretty much everything. Thanks to irrigation and Jude’s oversight. Thanks

for everyone else who contributes to these reports, I really enjoy reading these reports and keeping us

all in the loop of what it takes to grow food.

Fred [Thanks for the plug Fred!]

Jamie Jones, Jones family Farms, Shelton, CT

We are farther into our pumpkin harvest than we’ve probably ever been to this date. The quality is

excellent, the yields very good and virtually no pumpkins left behind in the field. [Proof once again that

you can get near 100% marketable fruit with the right fungicide program!]

One observation is very high numbers of striped cucumber beetles in parts of some fields. In places with

the highest populations they have done some feeding on the stems, removing the outside dark green

covering and leaving the stems white. It doesn’t ruin them, but does diminish their marketability. The

best solution is to get them harvested and out of the fields. But would there be any benefit to

controlling them, even in fields that have been harvested to reduce populations next year? [I know you

retail all your pumpkins at the Jones Farm, but for those who wholesale pumpkins, they must control

the cucumber beetles late if they begin to feed on the fruit or handles to be able to market them and to

retain their customers. I don’t think it will benefit you to spray fields that have already been harvested].

Hope you are well. We missed seeing you this year, but know you are keeping busy! Thanks for keeping

us updated.

Jamie

Earl Skokan, Stillwater Farm, Torrington, CT [reported by J.B.] The biggest late season problem Earl had was with Alternaria leaf spot on his Brussel sprouts. He thought he used ‘Diablo’, a resistant variety to avoid spraying, and is double-checking on that for me, because the Diablo I have in a variety trial at the Research Farm do not have a single spot on them.

Brussel sprouts with Alternaria leaf spot

Close-up of Alternaria on sprout. Photo by Joan Allen

Josh Vincent, Vincent Farms, W. Suffield, CT [reported by JB]

Sweet corn: Josh captured just 0.4 CEW moths per night, dictating a 6-day spray schedule on fresh-

silking corn. He is finishing up harvest, so is all done spraying. We took his traps down and the top will

be stored in a steel cabinet to keep mice from going after the insect parts and chewing holes in the trap.

Peppers: 3 ECB moths were captured again this week. He doesn’t need to spray his peppers.

Tomatoes: We captured 2 brown marmorated stink bugs (BMSB) in his trap this week. This indicates

that the insect is present on the farm but at very low levels. No spray needed.

Cucumbers: His youngest planting that looked so close to death from the drought last week, benefited

tremendously by the rain later in the week, and pretty much recovered this week and produced a nice

yield. All’s well that ends well!

BMSB trap along tree line adjacent to tomato field. Baited with two different lures.

Jonathan Griffin, Oxen Hill Farm, Suffield, CT [reported by JB]

Sweet corn: Jonathan captured 4.3 CEW moths per night, which calls for a 4-day schedule on silking

corn. The ears of his last planting were damaged by the drought.

Tomatoes: we did not capture any brown marmorated stink bugs in his trap near tomatoes.

Potatoes: Despite not using row covers, Jonathan’s russet potatoes look great. He is currently using the

single-row Italian harvester pictured below, but is hoping to get his used two-row machine up and going

by the end of the week to speed up the harvest. He has many acres to harvest. He has a couple extra

new single-row machines if anybody is interested. Sure beats digging potatoes by hand!

Potatoes at Oxen Hill Farm in Suffield

Single-row Italian-made harvester Potatoes dug by single-row harvester

Used two-row potato harvester

Willy Dellacamra, Cecarelli Farm, Northford, CT [reported by JB]

Sweet corn: Willy captured 1.6 CEW moths per night in his traps, keeping him on a 4-day schedule on

silking corn. Again, that last field of corn that looked dry and in trouble last week looks pretty good after

the rain.

Peppers: Only 1 ECB moth was captured this week. Who knows what happened to that second

generation, but we sure didn’t miss them!

Tomatoes: He captured 4 BMSB in his trap along the wood line this week, but none in the trap 90-feet

into the tomatoes. Again showing just low level activity in the southern part of the Valley. Willy didn’t

find any stinkbugs in the packing house this week and we didn’t find any while scouting the plants and

turning over leaves.

Nelson said that the cucumbers are starting to have quite a bit of downy mildew, despite using Tanos,

Ranman and Presidio. I explained that the first DM of the season to reach us usually originates in the

Ontario cucumber greenhouses. After a while, we also get new strains moving in from the south where

the disease can overwinter on living cucurbit crops or weeds. The new or later-arriving strains may or

may not be susceptible to the same fungicides that worked on the first strain. At this point in the

season, you are back to guessing which products may hold off the DM.

Ben and Stephen Berecz, The Farm, Woodbury, CT [reported by JB]

They captured 1 CEW moth per night leaving them on a 5-day spray schedule on silking corn.

Winer squash: they had a lot of fruit damaged by sunscald with the high temperatures we have

experienced recently. They also had a few fruit show signs of bacterial leaf spot infection. Late copper

applications may help reduce the amount of infection before the fruit are harvested. They will rotate to

a non-host crop like sweet corn next season.

“Water-soaked” spots on squash caused by bacterial infection. Photos by Joan Allen.

Doug Baggot, “Notch Road Farm”, Granby, CT [reported by J.B.]

Doug correctly identified a problem with Rhizoctonia on his cauliflower, but we had Jim LaMondia, at

the CT Ag Experiment Station in Windsor confirm it, just to be sure. Plants were discoloring, wilting, and

dying due to a dry girdling around the base, near the soil line (similar to wirestem on young plants). This

problem started after the rains last week.

Rhizoctonia causing large cauliflower plants to wilt and die.

The problem only exists at the edge of the field where they were planted on what was once an old dirt

field road, which formerly existed between the crop and the paved road. These plants may have

suffered extra stress, beyond the drought, due to soil compaction where the old field road once existed,

and the pH may be very low because this strip was not cropped for many years. Also, the ground is

lower than the rest of the field and may have suffered from excess runoff from the paved road and poor

drainage due to the compaction after the recent rains. We suggested he run a separate soil test on this

strip to see if the pH differs from the rest of the field and to see how far he may have to adjust it with

lime. We also recommended he try to break up the compaction for future crops with a sub-soiler or by

using their new zone tiller when the field is next planted. Fungicides may do little to help this late in the

crop cycle.

Remember that the fall is a great time to test your soil and apply lime to adjust the soil pH for next

season. Soils low in pH cannot pick up phosphorus which is important for root growth. If the roots are

too small to support the top growth, all the fertilizer in the world is not going to help your crops, and

lime is much cheaper than applying excess fertilizer.

That’s all for this season. I hope you found the weekly reports interesting and useful. I think most of us

learned about at least one or two new pests. I know I did! I’d be interested to hear your thoughts or

constructive criticism about how we can improve the message for future years. Some people requested

pictures last year– did you like all the pictures? Is the message working for you?

Hope to see you at a workshop or conference this winter. May the force be with you!

Jude Boucher, UConn Extension