UConn Extension Vegetable IPM Pest Message & Reports from the Farm, Friday September 4th, 2015 [Comments or answers in brackets are provided by Jude Boucher, UConn Extension] We are currently under a late blight alert on tomato and potato and a downy mildew alert for basil and cucurbit crops. Tanos and Presidio seem to be working well on this strain of DM, while Ranman produced mixed results, and Previcur Flex didn t seem to hold it in check. Steve Bengtson, Cold Spring Brook Farm, Berlin, CT ECB Z and E traps both had 0 moths this week. This is down from a total of 3 moths last week. CEW counts are also down from last week. Only one moth was caught in two traps over a four night period for a total of.125 moths per night. That puts us at no spray for now. Tomatoes still have no sign of late blight. Late cucumber and squash fields are not showing any sign of downy mildew so far. Fred Monahan, Stone Gardens Farm, Shelton, CT ECB= 4/week. Same as last week. CEW 1st trap = 1/night. CEW another trap= 8/night [Fred is on a 4-day spray schedule on fresh silking corn]. Maintaining fungicide treatment for all crops and all crops look good. Peppers have no BLS and tomatoes have very little. These seeds have been heat treated and I can t say enough about the positive results. Still seeding fall radishes and Asian green mixes in the field and fall and winter plantings in greenhouses. The rest of our time is spent irrigating. Needless to say it s been an awful dry year. Jamie Jones, Jones Family Farms, Shelton, CT Aside from the dry weather the pumpkins look good (we are very dry as we have missed all the rains over the past two weeks). We continue to irrigate what we can. There is a little powdery, but overall the disease issues are minimal. We have started harvesting some of the white varieties as their leaves are starting to naturally senesce and they will turn yellow if left in intense sunshine. Seeing next week s sunny forecast, we may have even more to put in the barn. So our main concern is how the early harvested cucurbits will hold up until ready to market in October. This is several weeks sooner than usual that we start our harvest.
Stephen and Ben Berecz, The Farm, Woodbury, CT [reported by J.B.] CEW was down to 1 moth per night in the traps, moving them to a 5-day spray schedule on fresh silking corn. Stephen found a couple of FAW or cabbage loopers in the tomato fruit this past week. He didn t bother to spray because there were so few. Carolyn Canfield and Byron Graham, Meetinghouse Farm, New Milford, CT [reported by J.B.] Red peppers have pepper maggot damage, but the maggots have already exited and gone to the soil to pupate. They bought Seduce back in July but never applied it. Next year they will apply it when the first stings are detected on the hot cherry pepper fruit in early July. Brussel sprouts had 100% of the plants with ICW larvae. They will use B.t. to clean the plants so that the caterpillars don t eat all the tiny sprouts. Mike and Meg Grogen, Autumn Oak Farm, Tolland, CT [reported by J.B.] Cauliflower and Brussel sprouts had 40% of the plants infested with cross-stripped cabbageworm and a new generation is coming because many leaves had one or two egg masses. You may want to consider hand-crushing egg batches on small plantings. Peppers are still producing despite bacterial leaf spot. Steve Sheldon, Sheldon Mel Farm, W. Suffield, CT [reported by J.B.] Cauliflower had CSCW. Scouted his pre-tassel stage corn and there were no ECB or FAW larvae. Josh Vincent, Vincent Farms, W. Suffield, CT [reported by JB] He captured an average of 1 CEW moth/night which moves him down to a 5-day schedule on silking corn. He captured only 1 ECB moth this week, down from 3 last week. No need to spray peppers. Josh has contained the bacterial canker infection on his older planting of tomatoes with regular copper applications and very little has moved into his later planting. Plenty of tomatoes being harvested. He applied Presidio in his last spray on cucumbers and his youngest planting is practically DMfree as it starts to set fruit. Jonathan Griffin, Oxen Hill Farm, Suffield, CT [reported by JB] The CEW trap at Jonathan s had 3 moths per night so he will stay on a 4-day spray schedule on fresh silking corn. As an organic grower, he is alternating between XenTari (B.t.) and Entrust.
He treated his broccoli last week with Entrust and it remained clean this week. Harvest is just starting. His carrots have not been fed upon by the White-lined sphinx moth larvae after removing the purslane from the planting. They ran the basket-weeder through again after the crew handweeded and it looks like he s going to have a great carrot harvest. Organic carrots at Oxen Hill Farm Cucurbits are suffering from downy mildew, but still alive and producing fruit. He has been applying copper weekly and will try some Double Nickel, a competitive bacteria. Tomatoes: earlier this year I showed you a picture of Jonathan s caterpillar tunnels. Here is a picture of what his tomatoes look like this week in the tunnels (first picture) and just outside of the tunnels in the same rows, where they have been suffering badly from Septoria leaf spot. Note that by keeping the morning dew off the plants with the tunnels (there hasn t been much rain), the SLS has hardly spread at all. Looks like a better organic method than spraying with weak fungicides!
Top: tomatoes protected by a caterpillar tunnel Bottom: tomatoes in the same rows just outside of the caterpillar tunnels Liz Cecarelli, Eve s Corner Garden, Bethany, CT We may have finally figured out what it was that was making all the small holes in the pepper fruit and larger holes in the leaves. No, it wasn t the pepper weevil, as I suspected earlier we never did find any PW in the fruit. I found this spotted cutworm under one of the injured plants this week. If you remember, Michaele Williams was having trouble with this same pest on the asparagus at Bishop s Orchards in Guilford back in June.
Spotted cutworm found under pepper plants. Liz and Eric tried M-Pede on the cabbage whiteflies on her Kalettes (a cross between Brussel sprouts and kale) since my last visit, but the population is still present and healthy. However, the plants look like they will survive without much injury or damage. Willy Dellacamra, Cecarelli Farm, Northford, CT [reported by JB] CEW traps in Wallingford captured an average of 3 or 8 moths per night, leaving them on a 4- day spray schedule on fresh silking corn. They failed to capture any ECB moths in their peppers, down from 3 moths last week. Pepper plants with bacterial canker are losing a lot of the lower leaves, not bearing much fruit, but most of the fruit that is there are blemished-free and marketable. Rare bacterial canker spot on pepper pod.
The crop consultant captured another 10 cabbage looper moths in the tomatoes. Another application for loopers may be necessary to keep fruit free of damage. An application of Intrepid, a growth regulator, or another product that is selective and doesn t kill all the beneficial insects will control the loopers and help avoid late season aphid or mite outbreaks. Cabbage looper moths in a green IP trap with red vapona killing strip. Nelson commented that, with the help of fungicide applications for DM, this is the first year in a while that he has had great basil this late in the season. He has been alternating between Quadris and Ranman, but Revus is also effective. Organic growers may have some luck with Milstop, Actinovate and Oxidate. Plastic or landscape cloth? that is the question! While scouting field tomatoes with Willy, I mentioned to him how (in my opinion), plants always grow better on black plastic than they do on landscape cloth. He agreed and brought me over to see their late tomato planting in their two side-by-side high tunnels. They were the same varieties planted within a couple days of each other. Note how much bigger and stronger the plants on the black plastic are (left), and at fraction of the cost of using landscape cloth. I took these photos from the same spot between the tunnels.
High tunnel lined with black plastic High tunnel lined with landscape cloth That s all for this week. I ll send another update on Friday, September 11th.