Apple Disease Management Notes for April For those at tight cluster through pink: Assuming trees have less than 3” of new growth, early applications of apogee will help prevent fire blight in what is shaping up to be a cooler, wet spring. With temperatures flirting with 70, fire blight needs to be on your radar[Read More…]
Disease Management
Sweet cherry is crop that continues to be of great interest to Indiana growers. It also continues to be a challenge due to bacterial canker, caused by Pseudomonas syringae. This bacterium is a significant pathogen of young sweet cherry trees killing 10 to 20 percent of the trees in new orchards within 5 years of[Read More…]
Just like other commodities, “generic” versions are increasingly available for many common fungicides as patents expire on various proprietary active ingredients. By law, generic products must contain the same amount of active ingredient as the original fungicides, but the formulation may be different. As a result, confusion continues as formulation of a fungicide is proprietary[Read More…]
We are seeing a lot of powdery and downy mildew on grapes this year. These diseases often get established in the late season after harvest. It is important to maintain healthy foliage all the way until frost to maximize winter hardiness. So managing these diseases is important in years like this. Growers should consider a[Read More…]
2018 is looking a bit like 2016 with all this late summer rain. We’ve had statewide rainfall each of the past 5 weeks. Most unwelcome! Sour rot and Ripe rot are becoming common in our research trials and vineyards around the state. Early ripening thin-skinned varieties are especially prone to skin splitting and cracking due[Read More…]
Susan Brown of Cornell probably said it best: “The performance and attributes of Honeycrisp are varied and can be grouped under the heading, ‘The good, the bad, and the ugly.’ The ‘good’ refers to a great name for marketing and excellent texture, crispness, and juiciness. The ‘bad’ refers to coloring problems, appearance defects, and susceptibility[Read More…]
With weird weather often comes weird physiological disorders (on top of our summer fruit rots). Often confused with hail injury, disease or insect damage, these physiological disorders are marring the appearance of many apples. Symptoms of bitter pit include circular or even irregular sunken spots on the fruit surface, beneath brownish or streaked dead regions[Read More…]
ReTain (AVG) is a plant growth regulator that blocks the production of ethylene. When ReTain is applied to apple, several ripening processes are slowed, including preharvest drop, fruit flesh softening, starch disappearance, and red color formation. In order for ReTain to be effective it must be applied well in advance of the climacteric rise in[Read More…]
Glomerella leaf blight seems to be rearing its ugly head. Symptoms include lesions with concentric rings in them that can grow together and give the leaf a blighted appearance (Fig. 1). Leaves may yellow and fall off (Fig. 2) and may appear like Golden Delicious necrotic leaf blotch on a variety of apple cultivars (Fig.[Read More…]
Diseases that affect the twigs, branches, and the main trunk of a tree are referred to as cankers or blights. Canker diseases can be a serious problem in the orchard, vineyard, berry or bramble patch when they are not properly managed, and even when they are. All woody plants can be infected by canker pathogens.[Read More…]