A decision could come soon for Southeast blueberry growers hoping to find relief from seasonal imports causing harm to their farming operations.
The International Trade Commission (ITC) heard the American Blueberry Growers Alliance Case in early January. Now, it will formulate a recommendation for President Biden to decide how to move forward.
“I think the data makes the case for us. I think we have the data on our side. It’s hard not to look at the data and see what’s going on,” said Ryan Atwood, who lives in Mount Dora, Florida and farms 56 acres of blueberries, manages another 350 acres and is part-owner of the largest packing house in the Southeast United States.
Gloomy Picture
The statistics paint a picture of Southeast blueberry producers struggling to compete with imports from other countries, namely Mexico.
Florida Ag Commissioner Nikki Fried said Florida’s blueberry market share had declined by 38% since 2015. Mexico’s market share has increased by 2,100% since 2009.
According to the American Blueberry Growers Alliance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture Marketing Service reported a 68% increase in imported fruit from Mexico from 2019 to 2020, amounting to more than 15 million pounds of fresh blueberries during a 14-week period. Mexico, along with Peru, Chile, Canada and Argentina account for more than 98% of total U.S. imports. Import values increased from $530 million in 2014 to $1.2 billion in 2019.
Opposing Groups
Groups who opposed the blueberry’s alliance case also made their case to the ITC. Atwood believes their makeup consisted mostly of marketers and not farmers.
“The only thing that I felt hurt us was they tried to portray themselves as a bunch of growers. Honestly, it was marketing interests that were being represented on the opposition,” Atwood said. “I think anyone who knows the industry and knows the players and knows who was on who’s side know it was marketers on the other side and growers on our side. It was pretty clear.”
Now comes the hard part…waiting. A recommendation from the ITC and a decision from President Biden could come as early as March.
“I don’t know how this will all turn out if the president will sign it. That’s to be determined, to be seen. I think there’s a lot of us that are really interested in the outcome. One good thing about the process, it’s a fairly quick process when you think about it in terms of being politics,” Atwood said. “Start to finish, it’s going to end up being what, four, five, six months? I’m pleased at least that it wasn’t like we were dragging this thing out over three or four years.”
Photo courtesy of UGA College of Agricultural & Environmental Sciences
Georgia pecan producers enjoyed a banner production season, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Georgia, which accounts for 47% of the nation’s pecan production, showed a 23% increase in value of production for 2020.
Georgia produced 142 million pounds, compared to just 73 million in 2019 and 70 million in 2018. Those two years were down because of Hurricane Michael’s impact in October, 2018. The value of Georgia’s utilized production was $168.9 million, compared to $137.2 million in 2019 and $113.4 million in 2018.
Favorable conditions aided Georgia producers. Utilized production would be the highest since 2007.
United States’ utilized production in 2020 totaled 302 million pounds, up 18% from 2019.
AUBURN UNIVERSITY, Ala. — When picking up a peach from the store, consumers often don’t think about the intricate growth process fruit endures to be store ready. Peach farmers know the importance of nurturing and monitoring the peach growing process. The most important part of a peach’s growth are chill hours. These hours serve as the make or break point for tasty, store quality peaches.
Chill Hours
A chill hour is the exposure the peach or fruit has to chilling temperatures by hour. According to Alabama Extension specialist Edgar Vinson, peaches and other temperate fruits are required to meet a certain number of chill hours. This allows the fruit to break dormancy in the spring when temperatures are warm.
“It’s like an internal clock that lets the plant know that warm weather in on the way,” Vinson said. “It will soon be time to bloom and produce leaves.”
Peach Hours
Peach varieties have different chill hour requirements. Some require as few as 50 chill hours, while others need as many as 1,400 chill hours. However, the number of hours each peach requires is dependent on the specific variety.
“The early season variety ‘June Gold’ requires 650 chill hours, whereas the ‘Contender’ requires 1,050 chill hours,” Vinson said.
In the Southeast, chilling measurements begin Oct. 1 and end on Feb. 15 the following year, depending on the region. Chill hours are traditionally measured using the Weinberger model. This model measures chilling at 45 degrees Fahrenheit and below. However, the modified Weinberger measures chilling between 32°F and 45°F. Another model, the Dynamic model, measures chilling in terms of chill portions where the optimum chill occurs at 43°F. As temperatures rise above or fall below 43 degrees, chilling accumulation becomes less efficient according to this model. It also shows that chilling can be lost as a result of exposure to warm temperatures in the winter.
If peach trees receive an excess number of chill hours, the buds will bloom too early. This will then make the blooms vulnerable to late season frosts.
Complex issues occur when peaches receive too few chill hours. If chill hours are deficient, it will delay the bloom period causing a protracted harvest season. The marketability of the fruit will substantially diminish with too few chill hours. While there are a few solutions to inadequate chill hours, they cannot have the same effect as the chill hours themselves.
Solutions to Inadequate Chill Hours
It is important to first research the amount of chilling your area historically receives if you are growing peaches.
“It is not advisable to plant a tree that requires 1,050 chill hours when your area historically only receives 650,” Vinson said.
If there comes a late-season frost and the peaches received too many chill hours, simply delay pruning. Pruning invigorates the trees to help stimulate bud break in the case of low chill accumulation.
If there are too few hours, some farmers will use rest breaking chemicals to stimulate bud break. The efficiency of these chemicals relies on weather conditions and the degree to which the tree is deficient in chilling.
“Research is still being conducted to determine optimal methods of applying these chemicals,” Vinson said.
More Information
For more information on peach chill hours, visit the Alabama Extension website, www.aces.edu.
University of Florida/IFAS reminds tomato producers that plants must be destroyed within five days following final harvest of their crop. Under Florida law, abandoned tomato fields that have not been destroyed within five days after final harvest are subject to an Immediate Final Order per Rule, says Gene McAvoy, UF/IFAS Extension agent emeritus.
If tomato plants are left in the field, they could attract viruses and pests, including whiteflies. This could be problematic for neighboring fields or for future crops in the tomato field.
“Most growers are pretty good about it. They plant successive plantings, and you end up shooting yourself in the foot if you don’t clean them up pretty quickly. Most guys do, but occasionally you get a bad actor, maybe they’re leasing land and season’s not going good for them, for whatever reason, they walk away and leave it there,” McAvoy said.
“It just becomes a festering sore. We’ve seen problems with whiteflies. We’ve seen problems with virus. We’ve seen problems in seasons where we have late blight.”
McAvoy said growers in south Florida will plant every couple of weeks, starting in August. This provides a continuous supply of tomatoes to satisfy market demands. That means farmers may be harvesting non-stop from late October to early May.
One South Georgia pecan producer is cautiously optimistic farmers will soon experience an increase in market prices. Coming off a season where pecan yields were the best in years and prices were the worst in some time, growers like Randy Hudson are hopeful prices will soon rebound.
“The old saying about the cure for low prices is low prices. The cure for high prices is high prices. When prices are low, people come in the market and buy a lot of pecans. Supply goes down. Demand goes up because the prices are cheaper. On the other hand, when prices are really high, demand has a tendency to really taper off. Supermarket sales, retail sales begin to go down. As a result of high prices, we typically follow it with low prices. It’s all kind of cyclic in nature any way,” said Hudson, who also works with the American Pecan Council, serves on the Pecan Export Trade Committee and member of the Georgia Pecan Growers Association
“It’s not a good year for growers, it’s a really good year for processors. I hope next year is a really good year for growers, and it may not be quite as good of a year for processors.”
The recent surge in interest from other countries has Hudson excited about the future market prices. Price increase is desperately needed considering the amount of Georgia crop that is in storage. Hudson estimates between 25 million and 35 million pounds are currently being stored.
“We’re already beginning to see in the last several days, we’re seeing some real interest in China, specifically, but around the world in general. Getting China back into this market is going to be a real positive. They’re back into, particularly, the Georgia market. They’re out here now competitively bidding on loads. We’re beginning to see the prices increase,” Hudson said.
“I’m very cautiously optimistic about the remainder of this market season. I know there’s a lot of growers in Georgia that have a lot of inventory on hand. I think it’s going to bring a little higher price than back during harvest season.”
High Yields
According to the latest USDA numbers, Georgia was projected to produce approximately 135 million pounds in 2020. It was amazing production and one growers were looking forward to following Hurricane Michael in 2018. However, prices were devastatingly low which hampered producers’ optimism and forced many to store their crop.
“It’s the best of times, it’s the worst of times. It was the best of times harvesting because we just had a great harvest season. We had outstanding yields. The quality was superb, probably the best quality we’ve seen in years. The weather was very important because the quality sustained itself all the way through second harvest. That was the best of years,” Hudson said. “The worst of years as a grower, though, when we started having to price this and getting paid for the crop, prices in some cases were half of what they were a year ago.”
Alabama Production
It was a devastating year for Alabama producers as well. Not just because of low prices but of two hurricanes that wiped out a substantial amount of this year’s crop. Winds from Hurricanes Sally and Zeta also uprooted many trees, creating countless future losses for the state’s producers.
According to the Southeastern U.S. 2021 Vegetable Crop Handbook, crop rotation is key in preventing the buildup of soil-borne pathogens. Specialists from universities across the Southeast implore producers to consider an effective rotation sequence that consists of crops from different families that are poor or non-hosts of these pathogens.
The longer the rotation the better the results will be. A 3-to-5-year rotation is recommended.
However, growers must weigh the practicality of rotating their crops on the availability of land, the markets, what alternate crops that are able to grow in the area, the pathogens and the purpose of the rotation.
Clemson Extension agents provide updates in the The South Carolina Grower this week about the status of various crops being produced throughout the state.
Weekly Field Update
Statewide
Dr. Matt Cutulle reports, “Burndown herbicide efficacy can be reduced in colder weather, especially systemic products such as glyphosate (Reduced translocation in the cold means herbicide does not move through the plant as much). A contact herbicide like Gamoxone is not significantly impacted by cold weather, thus it might be a good option to use on medium to small weeds. If you have to use glyphosate make sure that the formulation is loaded with a non-ionic surfactant (NIS) and then add 2.5% Ammonium Sulfate (AMS). If the glyphosate formulation is not loaded with NIS, added an NIS product (should contain at last 90% active ingredient) such as Induce at 0.25% (quarter of 1%) in the tank mix.”
Coastal
Zack Snipes reports, “Now is the perfect time to gear up for the upcoming season with preventative maintenance on sprayers and tractors. Proper spray coverage is absolutely essential when spraying expensive pesticides and nutrients. Why would you buy a jug of pesticide for $800 and not have it properly applied? I was at a farm last week working on a spray trial and we took a few hours to clean out screens, filters, and orifices in the sprayer. The sprayer I was working on had 5 out of 10 nozzles completely clogged and corroded. We would only get half or less coverage since the nozzles were so clogged. Once we cleaned everything, we needed to recalibrate our sprayer since we were actually putting out product through all of the nozzles. Take the time and get things ready for the year.”
Proper spray coverage on a nice looking crop of strawberries. Photo from Zack Snipes.
Midlands
Justin Ballew reports, “Last week stayed pretty cool (high temps in the 50s), wet and cloudy. Crops aren’t growing very fast right now. We still have a few greens being harvested, but we’ve slowed down from the New Years rush. Most of the strawberries I’ve looked at are still around the 2-to-3 crown stage. We’re seeing some aphids here and there, but those are rarely anything to be concerned about. Instead, keep checking for mites. Spider mites are active when daytime temperatures are over 50 degrees, so even though it’s chilly to us, they’re active for most of the winter. Fields planted adjacent to tomatoes back in the fall need to be scouted especially well.”
Great stand of rye between the rows of this strawberry field. This will help tremendously with weed suppression. Photo from Justin Ballew.
Pee Dee
Bruce McLean reports, “Be sure to get out and scout your strawberries. Starting to see a fair amount of Phomopsis in the fields. Captan will give some control, but Rally is a better option. Also, starting to see some Botrytis showing up on ripening fruit… that fruit that has been able to escape frost events and develop. Removal of infected fruit and dead leaves will help reduce pathogen when it comes time to flower and fruit. Across the northern portion of the Pee Dee the strawberry crop is pretty varied in development and appearance. Some plantings are well behind others. This is primarily due to the frequent and heavy rains since planting. Any plants that may have been set (even the least bit) low, experienced loose soil to be washed down around the crown, burying the crown too deep. With the crown being buried, the plants were either stunted or killed. Stunted plants can recover, but likely will not develop and yield properly come spring. Now is the time to begin winter pruning of blueberries, blackberries and muscadines… as well as many fruit trees. Proper winter pruning will go a long way towards improving yield, plant health, overall plant architecture and size management. Ideally, winter pruning for perennial fruiting plants should be performed between early January through early March.”
Botrytis already showing up on strawberries. Photo from Bruce McLean.
Tony Melton reports, “Wet, wet, wet. Badly need to start bedding for stale-bed-culture. Putting off bedding sweet potatoes until March. I have seen a lot of spider mites on strawberries and started to spray to get them under control. However, too wet to get tractor in fields, so many farmers are using backpack mist sprayers to get job done.”
Choosing vegetable varieties is probably the most important decision a grower can make and can be the difference between a crop failure or success. On our farm, we consider seed selection one of the most powerful and efficient tools as part of the cultural controls in an integrated pest management program. It takes no extra effort to plant a better variety, and huge results can be achieved in both yields and disease resistance.
The planet we live on has many different climates and conditions, and yet people across the world all still want red tomatoes. This is where the wonderful genetic diversity of plants comes into play. A seed variety that produces a healthy, red cherry tomato commonly grown in the North may struggle in the South. A different variety with different genes, better suited for the South, may have an internal mechanism coded within to help the plant cope with intense heat and pest and disease pressures. An extra waxy cuticle, more vigorous growth to stay ahead of leaf loss, and quicker systemic responses are just a few of the many ways a plant can be better adapted to different conditions.
DIVERSIFY FOR RESILIENCY
In the beginning stages of an organic farm, a good practice to best protect against a crop failure is to plant several different crops and even varieties of crops. That way, if an unsuitable variety is planted, the loss will be small and other varieties can make up for it. Over time, the different seed varieties will show their strengths and weaknesses.
Even after the stronger varieties are determined, it is still a good idea to trial new seed varieties because every year is different. What did well last year may have to make room for another variety to take the spotlight. Having a diverse crop plan will make your farm more resilient to changes and new stresses. Plants come with amazing genetic diversity, which should be used to the farmer’s advantage.
CONSERVE RESOURCES
A good variety is such an effective control because you will spend less time, energy, resources and tears on it. An unsuitable variety will cost you more money in labor, chemicals, and/or equipment to maintain it.
On our farm, we have had experiences with weak seed varieties that needed to be sprayed more often with more expensive materials to keep the crop from succumbing to disease. On the flip side of that same coin, we have had solid varieties which seemed to be completely carefree with good management.
KNOW YOUR SITE
It is all about site-specific needs. There are hundreds of different conditions a farm could be planted under and, thankfully, hundreds of different varieties of crops available to choose from. Local Extension offices are a great tool to get started with. They will know which varieties perform best in your location, but farmers should do their own trials because every farm is different, and management strategies will affect which varieties perform the best.
ORGANIC VS. NON-ORGANIC SEED
National Organic Program rules state that non-organic seeds can be used only if organic seed cannot be found or is not commercially available in the quantities needed. A search record must be provided with three attempts to source organic seed if non-organic seed must be used.
We have heard from both experienced farmers and university professors that crops grown from non-organic seeds perform better than crops grown from organic seeds. We have made our own observations on the matter and tend to agree with them.
However, others say it is a myth that organic seed crops do not perform as well. Organic seed undergoes the same rigorous disease testing as non-organic seed, according to our local Extension agent. She has assured us that there should be no difference. We encourage all farmers to see for themselves!
Tiffany Bailey is owner and Ida Vandamme is farm manager at Honeyside Farms in Parrish, Florida.
Photo submitted by Stanley Culpepper/UGA: Shows a blend of yellow and purple nutsedge.
Weed management in vegetable crops across the Southeast remains a diverse and complicated practice that all producers need to be reminded of.
“There are so many components that a vegetable grower has to consider, especially when it comes to weed control. Some production systems you can use tillage. Some you can’t. Some you have plasticulture in a fumigant system. Some that you don’t,” University of Georgia Cooperative Extension weed specialist Stanley Culpepper said.
“Then when you start thinking about herbicides, we’ve been very fortunate over the last 10 years, getting our growers a lot of cool herbicide tools as a component to their management program, but when you’re a vegetable producer and going to have a crop and be in and out in 60, 80, 90 days, you’ve got to think about herbicide carry-over. I can or I can’t use herbicide ‘A’ because of what it could potentially do to the next crop, which means you’ve got to know what the next crop is going to be. You know vegetable guys as good as I do, a lot of times, they just don’t know.”
Producers have to implement the right herbicide and do so at the right rate. They have to use the right irrigation program. The tank also has to be perfectly clean.
“The complexity goes on and on for a vegetable farmer. A lot of decisions have to be made in a 12-month cycle because we could be producing three crops in a lot of our farms,” Culpepper said.
Weed Problems
Certain weed species are also problematic at different times of the year. Weeds that are normally a concern for producers in the spring are not the same as those that are plaguing producers right now. Different weeds require different management strategies.
“Lets start in the spring. In a fumigated plasticulture production system, nutsedge remains the baddest boy that there is. That’s the only weed that can penetrate through the mulch. Nutsedge is still a huge dominant player. In addition to nutsedge, what has really taken its foothold on a lot of my guys has been purslane species and a lot of ours is actually pink purslane; a bunch of different grasses that have always been here and then our amaranth species (not palmer amaranth),” Culpepper said.
“If you look at this time of year, wild raddish is the baddest boy that there is.”
Weed Management
Weed management remains key to successful vegetable production, whether you are talking about now or in the spring. Before plants are ever put in the ground, weed control needs to be a top consideration for producers. Weeds challenge and can overwhelm crops for water, sunlight and nutrients.
Culpepper said in most situations, the weeds are better competitors than the crop.
“Before you ever start a conversation, you say, ‘Look, vegetable weed control is really challenging. There can’t be any weed emerge at planting.’ It’s very likely that if we’re going to implement a herbicide program we’ve got to start it before we ever plant,” Culpepper said.
“In transplanted onion production, obviously, very important to Georgia, we have an excellent herbicide program that will be successful probably 95-plus% of the time, which is really, really good. If you wanted to grow seeded onion production in the state of Georgia, I don’t think you’ll have a chance because you can’t manage the weeds. Or if you do, you’ll spend a tremendous amount of money.
“There’s the same crop per se grown two different ways; one is very unlikely to be successful and the other is very likely to be successful with regards to weed management.”
“If you wanted to seed cabbage, because of wild raddish, you’re in trouble. But if you want to transplant cabbage, I have a herbicide you can put out before you transplant, and I’ll take the wild raddish out.
“There’s two examples, exact same crop, of how you want to process or implement your program will determine how successful you’ll be.”
UGA CAES Photo/A survey conducted by UGA researchers examined whether respondents had any concern about the growing of hemp and the creation of hemp products in their area.
By Allison Fortner for CAES News
Hemp is a promising new industry for profitability, but growers of this newly legal crop will face a mix of public opinions according to University of Georgia research into challenges those in the hemp business may face in the southeastern United States.
A recently published article in the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics identified the concerns nearby residents may have with local hemp production and processing. The study was led by UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences faculty Benjamin Campbell and Julie Campbell in collaboration with Adam Rabinowitz at Auburn University.
“We got involved in doing hemp economics two years ago when it was passed with the legislature,” said Benjamin Campbell, associate professor and UGA Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics. “We started asking if there would there be a negative perception or externalities associated with these hemp processors coming [into communities].”
With the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp was legalized as a crop in all states. Though hemp is not a novel crop, the legislation opened opportunities for markets in new areas and resulted in a fast push to produce and process the plant. The research team initially examined budgeting and markets surrounding hemp but found there was a lack of research in hemp production perception. They sought to identify potential problems that could arise in communities where the crop is grown and processed into various goods.
“We kept seeing people concerned about light pollution and the smell in popular press-type reports,” said Julie Campbell, an assistant research scientist in the Department of Horticulture.
The group put together a list of questions that was distributed via an online survey to southeastern U.S. residents. The responses were representative of the population, with consideration to household income, race, education level, age and gender.
Demographic Considerations
The survey examined whether respondents had any concern about the growing of hemp and the creation of hemp products in their area.
Researchers found that Republicans are 4.8% more concerned about hemp production and 4.9% more concerned about processing than Democrats. Therefore, the political landscape should be considered when hemp firms are garnering local community support.
The research also revealed that education level does not necessarily dictate the amount of concern. Respondents with a high school education or less and those with graduate degrees expressed more concern about local hemp production and processing than those with a bachelor’s degree.
“There’s not one consumer. There’s a whole various subset of consumers that believe different things,” Ben Campbell said. “Surveys allow us to understand these different groups and assess what their perceptions are. This helps us inform these groups so they can understand what’s going on with the new technologies.”
Differences Between Hemp and Marijuana
Though hemp and marijuana are identical in appearance, the determining difference between the two is the level of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) present in the cannabis plant. THC is the chemical responsible for most of marijuana’s psychological effects, but its levels are strictly regulated in commercial hemp crops. Ben Campbell said a resulting concern is consumer belief that hemp is the same as marijuana, though smoking a hemp plant does not result in a high.
The survey collected information about consumer knowledge level and found that 44% of respondents thought that hemp and marijuana were the same, while 44% knew hemp and marijuana were different. The remaining 12% had never heard of hemp.
“For years there have been entire drug campaigns saying, ‘Marijuana is horrible.’ People associate hemp and marijuana as being the same thing. Now all of the sudden we’re saying, ‘Hemp is good.’ It’s kind of hard to have people turn on a dime,” Julie Campbell said.
While the plants have different chemical compositions, their matching appearance leads to concerns of illegal activity.
“You have people breaking into fields in other states and stealing hemp plants because they think it’s marijuana. That’s one of the externalities I was looking at — illegal activity,” Ben Campbell said.
The survey examined the perceived concerns of respondents and found that the potential for illegal activity and overall safety were the highest-rated concerns for both local growth and processing.
Therefore, engagement with communities to dispel myths about hemp and to educate about its benefits is crucial. These efforts should also address issues of local concern to help neighborhoods feel more comfortable with the hemp firms in their areas.
“I think it brings up a point that you need to have producers and processors interacting with their neighbors to show them what they’re doing and alleviate any concerns so that they are informed. If not, you’re going to have people believing that you’re hurting them or harming them when that may not be the case. That’s the biggest overall takeaway,” Ben Campbell said.
Future Research
Julie Campbell said this research provides a perspective on what hemp firms will need to consider before investing money and establishing themselves in a community, especially considering the government hearings businesses must go through for community input. However, she said communication and education on this matter will be up to both industry and academia.
“People growing hemp, people growing medicinal marijuana – it’s coming,” she said. “We have to be able to do research on this so that we’re not left behind. People are looking to the university for guidance on this.”
The questions and results from this study will inform future consumer surveys. Recently, Ben Campbell received a Federal State Market Improvement Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), in collaboration with Auburn University, the University of Delaware, and the University of Kentucky, to conduct monthly consumer surveys over the next three years, allowing for further hemp research, among other public perception and marketing surveys.
Ben Campbell’s research and Extension efforts are devoted to better understanding the consumer marketplace for horticultural products, notably green industry products. He has more than 15 years of experience in conducting market and production economics research throughout the U.S. and Canada. His work has focused on market intelligence, market identification and the economics of production for varying horticultural commodities.
Julie Campbell’s recent research focuses on a number of issues facing the green industry, including consumer perceptions, marketing, disease mitigation and best management practices. Her research helps link consumers, retailers and producers, often intertwining multiple disciplines.
For more information on the UGA Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics Department, visit agecon.uga.edu. For more information on the UGA Department of Horticulture, visit hort.uga.edu.
