AgNet DEMO

Category: Fruit

  • Georgia Fruit Crops Impacted by Cold Temperatures

    South Georgia vegetables were not the only crops vulnerable to last weekend’s chilly temperatures. Fruit in middle and north Georgia were subjected to even colder temperatures. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Fruit Disease Specialist Phil Brannen is concerned about the state’s grape, apple and peach crops.

    Phillip Brannen

    “I think there will be some significant damage on grapes, anything that was advanced. I think most of the grapes are still not that advanced, so I’m hopeful that’s going to help. But it’s pretty cold temperatures,” Brannen said.

    Brannen said Chardonnay grapes are often the variety that comes out the earliest. It was definitely the most vulnerable to any frost damage.

    “Most of the time Chardonnay by this time would have some shoot development. Those shoots would be fried, as far as those young shoots,” Brannen said. “You can have secondary fruit production on buds. There are secondary buds that will produce fruit, but you’re going to have a much reduced crop from those secondary buds. As long as the secondary buds were not damaged, we can still have a crop of grapes even in things that were pretty far advanced.”

    Apple and Peach Crops

    The outcome may be just as significant for Georgia’s apple and peach crops.

    “When you’re looking at north Georgia, a lot of the apple trees were in full bloom. Depending on what stage they were in, they could be damaged pretty severely again this year. We had a lot of damage last year, but I think we’re going to have a good bit this year. We had two nights with really cold temperatures,” Brannen said. “I’m concerned about apples, peaches in north Georgia, same thing. A lot of them were in full bloom or just post bloom, and that kind of temperatures for as long of a period as we had is going to be pretty significant as far as damage.”

    Brannen estimated that temperatures in the north Georgia mountains dipped as low as 25 degrees or 26 degrees Fahrenheit. In Athens, Georgia where Brannen’s located, the temperature dropped to about 30 degrees. He’s concerned about middle Georgia peaches as well, where he heard temperatures dropped below 30 degrees in one orchard.

    “I’m hopeful on peaches in middle Georgia it’s just going to kind of thin them as opposed to causing major issues. But it remains to be seen,” Brannen said.

  • New Normal? Vegetable, Fruit Sales Up Amid Pandemic

    Increased food consumption at home amid COVID-19 means potentially more sales of fresh fruits and vegetables for Alabama producers, says Wendiam Sawadgo, Alabama Extension economist.

    “There was about a 50% increase in consumption at home in (last) March compared to before the pandemic. That sort of tapered off a little bit. But it’s still much higher than it was before,” said Sawadgo during the Alabama Extension Commercial Horticulture Facebook Q&A session on Friday. “What that means for a lot of our fruit and vegetable producers is sales have gone up. Fruit sales have been up 7% compared to before the pandemic. Vegetable sales about 12%.

    Restaurants closing amid the onset of the pandemic meant a drastic increase in families eating at home. But as states continue opening up and vaccines are administered around the country, does that mean a return to the pre-COVID days? Not necessarily.

    “We have data from a company that’s been tracking what’s going on with grocery sales since last March. Now they have data from the first two months of the year. There’s the thought that maybe we’ll start to come back down to where we were before the pandemic,” Sawadgo said. “We’re still up 5% to 10% from where we were. The question moving forward, are we going to keep having these high sales for the next several months, which is what I think is most likely. I don’t think it’s quite as likely that consumer behavior is going to immediately return to how it was before March of 2020.

    “The next few months will be exciting to look at, especially as vaccine rollouts increase and more parts of the country get out more, to see if we can still have sustained vegetable sales.”

  • Looming Deadline: GFVGA Survey Due Friday

    The Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (GFVGA) wants Ag workers protected during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. As vaccinations continue to be administered across the country, the GFVGA is emphasizing the importance of essential Ag workers.

    This includes family, full-time employees and seasonal employees comprised of domestic, migrant and H-2A employees.

    GFVGA is administering a survey that will help inform local Georgia health districts about the essential Ag worker presence they will have during the upcoming spring season.

    The deadline to complete the survey is Friday.

    The GFVGA wants vaccines available at the earliest possible date and needs help from producers and industry leaders.

    Most of the decisions about how the vaccinations will be distributed will be made at the local level by the Georgia health department staff and district director as well as local hospitals and pharmacies.

    Participation in this brief survey is critical. For more information, contact the GFVGA office at (706) 845-8200.

  • Seed Facility: Bayer Opens Distribution Center in South Georgia

    Photo by Bayer/Shows the new fruit and vegetable seed distribution center in Valdosta, Georgia.

    A new fruit and vegetable seed distribution center will provide seed to Southeast produce farmers in a timely and efficient fashion.

    Bayer Vegetable Seeds announced the opening of its new distribution center in Valdosta, Georgia, located about 10 minutes from the Georgia-Florida state line. It will provide access to its Seminis branded large seed portfolio.

    Currently, the distribution center is offering large seed varieties for sweet corn and beans, says Logan Burkhart, U.S. and Canada Customer Operations and Distribution Manager.

    “I think for our customers down in the Southeast, it’s a direct to grower market. Having this physical location in the region just shows our commitment to those customers, and having that local supply available to them really helps put their mind at ease,” Burkhart said. “I would say in our Southeast region, it’s interesting because with the large seed portfolio difficult to move around, but having that delivery available locally is something that our customers really need. They’re not able to store it themselves so we’re able to have that distribution center to really be able to get it to them when they need it.”

    Facility Size and Location

    The facility has a physical cooler space of 3,000 square feet where the seed is stored. It is situated in the heart of the Southeast region. Valdosta is also not far from Alabama.

    “This is actually our second distribution center in the region. We do have one in South Florida. We noticed that we really wanted to get a physical location to service the more local Georgia area,” Burkhart said.

    He added that seed can continued to be ordered through the company’s sales representatives, who work closely with the growers.

    The facility is located at 615 James P Rodgers Drive, Valdosta, Georgia 31601.

    To learn more about the new distribution center or place an order, growers can call Oxnard Customer Service at 1-866-334-1056. The distribution center is open for appointment only Monday – Friday.

    If you’d like to learn more about Seminis, visit the website at Seminis-us.com.

    Seminis is the Vegetable Seeds business of Bayer’s Crop Science division.

  • Arbor Day: Celebrate with Fruit Trees

    UGA CAESNewswire photo/Apple trees can add a nice backdrop and bounty to your garden. Although the northern half of the state is best suited for the more “conventional” apple varieties, you can have success in the southern half of Georgia with adapted varieties.

    By Becky Griffin for CAES News

    Americans recognize Arbor Day in April. However, Georgia celebrates Arbor Day on the third Friday of February each year because this is a better time to plant trees, giving roots time to grow before the heat and drought of our summer months.

    Georgia’s Arbor Day falls on Feb. 19 this year and University of Georgia Cooperative Extension has many resources available to help you select, plant and maintain trees in your landscape.

    Fruit trees in particular can add a nice backdrop to your garden, provide a bit of shade during the very hot summer days and, of course, produce delicious and nutritious fruit.

    Be warned, however, that fruit trees can be a lot of work. There are a few points to think about before you decide to plant fruit trees in your home or community garden.

    Find the Right Location

    When planning fruit trees in limited space, location is the key. Fruit trees require at least six hours of sunlight to be healthy and to produce fruit. Eight to 10 hours of sun is optimal.

    Also, although the shade a fruit tree provides during August may be welcome, you do not want to create unwanted shade on vegetable plots. Dwarf trees may be the best answer here. They are also easier to care for than full-sized trees. Remember that what you plant will get bigger and taller.

    Maintenance Matters

    Realize that fruit trees involve more care than vegetables. They may need to be properly pruned, thinned and fertilized regularly. Apples, peaches and plums will get diseases and insects in Georgia, and this must be addressed with the use of pesticides, fungicides and traps.

    If you are avoiding using pesticides, growing traditional fruit trees such as apples, pears and peaches may not be for you. Instead, you may want to try other fruit crops such as blueberries and figs. UGA Extension Circular 1027-10, “Growing Fruits,” by UGArden Director David Berle and consumer horticulturist Robert Westerfield, is a great resource on these issues.

    You May Need More Than One

    Many trees need cross-pollination to produce fruit. You will need at least two different apple trees and, depending on the variety, you might need two different pear or plum trees.

    Most peach trees self-pollinate, so one will still produce fruit.

    Other Considerations

    Many fruit trees are purchased as bare-root trees that have no soil or planting medium around the roots. For information on planting these, see UGA Extension Circular 1061, “Planting Your Bare-Root Fruit Tree.”

    If these points haven’t scared you off, check out other Extension publications, including Circular 742, “Home Garden Pears,” and Circular 740, “Home Garden Apples.”

    Another way to think about trees is their value to pollinators. There are many “trees for bees” and other pollinators that do well in our Georgia ecosystems. Did you know that several native trees are larval host plants for butterflies? Extension Bulletin 1483, “Selecting Trees and Shrubs as Resources for Pollinators,” is a wonderful resource for Georgia gardeners.

    Contact your UGA Extension agent for more information on planting trees by calling 1-800-ASK-UGA1 or visiting extension.uga.edu/publications.

    Story taken from UGA CAES Newswire.

  • Short Supply: Lack of Captan Concerning for Fruit Farmers

    A shortage of a major fungicide could have a significant impact on fruit producers in the Southeast. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Fruit Disease Specialist Phil Brannen confirmed that Captan is in short supply right now.

    Spraying being done in a peach orchard.

    This is a major development for growers of strawberries, peaches, apples and grapes.

    It is one of the products that strawberry producers use for Anthracnose and Botrytis. Peach producers use it to protect against Brown Rot during cover sprays in mid-season.

    More pressing though, is its importance for grape and apple farmers. Brannen said it is the backbone of the spray programs for both of those commodities.

    “I’m hopeful that in those commodities we’ll get some Captan in eventually. If we don’t, in those commodities, I really don’t know what to do,” said Brannen. “We’ll just spray a lot of other stuff. It will really pressure us to get resistance development because we spray so often and so long on apples and grapes.”

    When Will Supplies Pick Up?

    Brannen is hearing that Captan supplies will pick back up in either April or May. Apples will start blooming in late March to early April.

    According to the UGA Extension Strawberry News blog, Brannen said that Thiram products can be used for disease control in strawberries. Other products are available, but Captan and Thiram mainly control Botrytis and Anthracnose.

    The concern of an extended short supply of Captan cannot be understated, however.

    “It’s an old fungicide. It’s been around a long time. It’s broad spectrum, so it works on a lot of different diseases. It does not develop resistance. That’s its main thing. It’s good against multiple diseases and it does not develop resistance, whereas most of the things that are really active, we try to target those when we need them and spray them as little as we can because they do develop resistance,” Brannen said. “It’s a backbone of the spray program. It’s part of what we would call our backbone for strawberries, for sure, and in large part for peach in the cover sprays it is. Then when you go to apples and grapes, it certainly is.

    “If we don’t have Captan, for whatever reason … we just don’t have really good options for resistance.”

  • Essential Workers: Response Requested for Survey

    The Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (GFVGA) is actively working to be the voice of Georgia’s produce industry.

    Agricultural workers are essential. The Georgia Department of Public Health is working to create a plan to get your agricultural workers vaccinated.

    The GFVGA wants COVID-19 vaccines available to them at the earliest possible date and needs your help.

    Most of the decisions about how the vaccinations will be distributed will be made at the local level by the Georgia health department staff and district director as well as local hospitals, pharmacies, etc. The information that the GFVGA hopes to gather via a survey will be used to help inform local Georgia health districts about the overall essential Ag worker presence they will have in their district during the Spring 2021 season. This should include family and full-time employees, as well as seasonal employees made up of domestic, migrant and H-2A employees.

    When the plan is enacted in your community, the GFVGA wants to ensure that local officials have the information needed to prioritize vaccinations for Ag workers. Your participation in this brief survey will help GFVGA achieve this critical goal. If you have any questions about how GFVGA has been working for you or how this information will be used, please contact the GFVGA office at (706) 845-8200.

  • Yeast Rot in Blueberries Major Problem in 2020

    A sporadic blueberry disease caused significant problems for Georgia producers in 2020.

    Though management options are non-existent with yeast rot, Jonathan Oliver, University of Georgia (UGA) assistant professor and small fruits pathologist, believes timely harvesting and handling of ripe fruit will help minimize instances in 2021.

    Photo by Clint Thompson/Shows Jonathan Oliver talking about yeast rot during the virtual Southeast Regional Fruit and Vegetable Conference.

    “It was a major problem for our rabbiteye growers. Kind of the last half, maybe the last three-quarters of the rabbiteye harvest, at least in southern Georgia, seemed to be affected by it significantly. It probably is weather and condition dependent,” Oliver said.

    “We had a lot of warmer weather right before we had the problem, and we had a lot of rainfall. It seems to be something of a problem when fruit is already either overripe or damaged in some way. Some of the weather conditions I think led to some of those problems. That’s why it was kind of an issue last year.

    “It sporadically can be an issue in other years as well. It was a real big issue right at that one critical time last year, unfortunately, for our growers.”

    Environmental Conditions

    Warm, wet or humid conditions likely favor the growth of the fungus. There was a rapid shift to warmer overnight temperatures in Georgia in mid-to-late May. It went from the mid-50s to mid-70s very quickly. Also, there was a huge rain event that contributed as well. Alma, Georgia received 2.3 inches on May 22.

    It is a secondary or weak pathogen that colonizes fruit surfaces and wounds. This causes the fruit to collapse and take on a wet, slimy appearance. Soft, splitting rot were common, and samples that were sent to the diagnostic lab were infested with yeasts.

    Economic losses were significant. Harvested fruit was rejected and packing lines shut down early.

  • COVID Forces Farmers to Consider Alternate Marketing Opportunities

    Photo by Clint Thompson/Shows boxed produce being sold direct to consumers.

    COVID-19 altered the marketing plans of Southeast vegetable and specialty crop producers in 2020. Restaurants closed, which crippled certain sectors of the fruit and vegetable industry.  

    Farmers must continue to adjust as a new season approaches while the pandemic continues. Jessie Boswell, Alabama Regional Extension agent, who specializes in commercial horticulture and farm and agribusiness management, believes the pandemic’s impact has forced farmers to realize their marketing options needed to expand and could expand in 2021.

    “I think it made a lot of farmers realize how flexible they have to be and actually noticing these other marketing channels that they have, they may not have even noticed it before,” Boswell said.

    “A lot of them may not even have realized how to do those different channels. Maybe they’ve been meaning to look into it later, and this just kind of made them realize they’d have to be more flexible in kind of looking ahead more so than they were in the past.”

    Boxed Produce/CSA

    Farmers like Bill Brim in Georgia boxed their produce and sold direct to consumers to offset decreased demand. Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) was another option that paid off for some producers.

    “I know of a farm and they were planning on transitioning to a CSA last spring, spring of 2020, and they were already planning that before the pandemic even happened. They had a way better year than they even could have imagined,” Boswell added. “They had already started setting up for direct to consumer or a CSA box. They sold an astronomical amount. They sold out, actually.

    “That’s probably what I have seen most people do is switch to more of an online (option) or CSA. Even some of the ones that aren’t technology savvy started selling stuff on Facebook, trying to sell their greens or whatever they had because their other marketing channels were not open.”

    Of course, encouraging some farmers to consider alternate marketing strategies is easier said than done.

    “I know a lot of farmers that like to do things the way they’ve been doing it for the past decade. They’re not always the biggest fans of change,” Boswell said.

  • SE Regional Fruit and Vegetable Conference Concludes Today

    Photo by Clint Thompson/Shows Madeline Dowling, a Clemson student, makes a presentation about the MyIPM App.

    This year’s virtual Southeast Regional Fruit and Vegetable Conference ends today with hopes of returning to an in-person format in 2022.

    Charles Hall, Executive Director of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, believes the educational sessions that were offered over the course of the three-day event are invaluable for producers this year and moving forward in upcoming growing seasons. More importantly, those educational sessions will be available for viewing even after the conference concludes.

    “One of the keys of the Southeast Regional Conference is education. We still had over 100 hours of education that is being offered. The good thing about it is that education continues until April 30. If people missed a class, they want to go back and listen to that instruction again, it’s going to be there on the (virtual) platform,” Hall said.

    “People can go back if they’ve registered for the conference, or if they wanted to register after the conference. Somebody that didn’t get to be on the conference this week, they can still register and go back and have the livestreaming of those sessions.”

    This week’s conference was changed to a virtual format amid COVID-19 concerns.