Insect Management
This winter-spring has been my first excursion into growing strawberries in a high tunnel. It didn’t take much for our own Wenjing Guan to convince me to plant some; who doesn’t love to eat fresh strawberries? We planted them back in October and I just peeked at them every couple of weeks throughout the winter,[Read More…]
Grapes are in the early stages of growth across the state, from bud break to 4 to 6 inch shoots. Significant frost and freeze damage occurred in central and southern areas so that will set growth back a couple of weeks as the secondary buds break. With a reduced number of primary shoots, protection of[Read More…]
Recently we have received reports of swarms of hover flies (aka syrphid flies) around Indiana and wanted to take the opportunity to tell you a bit about this curious insect (Figure 1). Adult hover flies can sometimes be mistaken for bees or wasps, because they look a lot like them! Some people refer to hover[Read More…]
The grape harvest will get started in the southern part of the state in the next couple of weeks. Most varieties are slightly behind normal this year. In Lafayette, early varieties are at the start of veraison and should be ready to harvest in four to five weeks. We generally harvest early varieties such as[Read More…]
This is the time of year to keep an eye out for the adult version of the Spotted Lanternfly. See a fact sheet at https://www.aphis.usda.gov/publications/plant_health/2014/alert_spotted_lanternfly.pdf This is an extremely serious pest of a wide range of woody plants. It has caused serious damage in grapes, apples, peaches, plums, blueberries, etc.[Read More…]
At the Southwest Purdue Ag Center, we are studying annual strawberry production on plastic mulch. Our hope is to gather information for best production practices in our area. As we learn about insect and disease problems, we will pass this information on to producers. This article is about the insect pests we have observed in[Read More…]
Japanese beetles appear to be especially abundant this year. They started showing up a couple of weeks ago and are now numerous in many areas. This past year Japanese beetle populations were higher than they have been for a number of years and this year looks to be a repeat. We’ve seen severe damage to[Read More…]
Grapes across the state are post bloom a week or more. As berries reach 3 to 5 weeks post bloom they become naturally resistant to infection by black rot and powdery mildew fungi. So our spray program can relax a bit. Growers normally extend to a 14 to 21 day schedule supported by regular scouting.[Read More…]
Eastern flower thrips, an occasional pest of strawberries, have been reported in large numbers in central Indiana. They are attracted to and feed on flowers, with the result being leathery fruit or fruit that fail to ripen. This problem occurs every year at some level but has not been serious since 1994. Eastern flower thrips[Read More…]