United States Department of Agriculture
Was your crop not eligible for the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP), or COVID-19? There is still a chance to try to get that crop on the list of eligible commodities. (Stephanie Ho and Latrice Hill, FSA Director of Outreach)
By Clint Thompson
U.S. Secretary of Ag Sonny Perdue understands the quick turnaround needed for farmers looking to benefit from the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program (CFAP). Especially for those producers in Florida. Some are already thinking about next season and need CFAP funds in place to proceed accordingly.
“Cash flow’s critical. When this food service industry stopped, it just stopped. It put a real dent in a lot of people’s revenue stream. They had produce packed and ready to go. Orders were cancelled. It was a problem,” Perdue said. “But again, I think (CFAP) will help. It’s very important that people come on in and apply so we can get the money to them as quickly as possible.”
CFAP payments are already being issued. The USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) began taking applications May 26. The agency has received over 86,000 applications for this important relief program.
According to farmers.gov, FSA will accept applications through August 28, 2020. Through CFAP, USDA is making available $16 billion in financial assistance to producers of agricultural commodities who have suffered a 5%-or-greater price decline due to COVID-19 and face additional significant marketing costs as a result of lower demand, surplus production, and disruptions to shipping patterns and the orderly marketing of commodities.
In a previous VSCNews story, Florida farmer Paul Allen talked about leaving 2 million pounds of green beans and about 5 million pounds of cabbage int he field. All because of limited marketing opportunities. The coronavirus also impacted commodity markets, as Florida blueberry farmer Ryan Atwood attests.
The nation’s orange production season is winding down and Florida’s production is almost finished. Thursday, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) issued its June forecast, which showed a decrease in the Florida citrus crop. Rod Bain has a story looking at the production estimates for the crop nearing the final totals for the marketing year.
Click here to get more numbers form the latest citrus crop forecast.
By Kelly Simmons for UGA CAES News
The University of Georgia is partnering with the Georgia Department of Agriculture to present a free digital marketing webinar for agribusiness owners looking for alternate ways to sell their products.
The webinar will be held on Wednesday June 17 at 10 a.m. by the UGA Small Business Development Center (SBDC), the Department of Agriculture’s Georgia Grown division and UGA Cooperative Extension.
Agriculture-related businesses from across the state have had trouble getting their fresh produce, meat and seafood to market during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The webinar will introduce participants to e-commerce, best practices for social and email marketing, and suggestions for packaging products for shipping.
“We’ll provide good takeaways on ways to market their business online,” said Bill Boone, SBDC entrepreneur outreach specialist. “If they need additional help or resources to implement the techniques covered in the class, the SBDC is available to assist.”
Additional webinars may be scheduled as needed, he said.
Georgia Grown helps agribusiness thrive by bringing producers, processors, suppliers, distributors, retailers and agritourism together to increase their exposure to customers suppliers and partners through an online searchable database. Find out more at georgiagrown.com/find-georgia-grown.
UGA Extension assists producers and consumers with information and resources through its network of county agents and specialists throughout the state. Visit the Extension website for more information at extension.uga.edu or call 1-800-ASK-UGA1.
Registration for the webinar is required and available at georgiasbdc.org/marketing-georgia-grown-ecommerce.
Emran Ali, Owen Hudson, Justin Hand, and Sumyya Waliullah
Georgia ranks among the top three states in the nation in vegetable production. One of the most serious diseases in vegetable production in Georgia is Phytophthora blight, caused by the oomycete pathogen Phytophthora capsici. It is a water mold that attacks the roots, foliage, and fruit, causing root rot, crown rot, leaf lesions, fruit rot, and plant wilt (Fig.1). The disease affects peppers, squash, watermelon, cucumber, cantaloupe, and other vegetable crops.
Fig. 1 Example of watermelon fruit rot caused by Phytophthora capsici (Photo credit: Dr. Pingsheng Ji)
The continuous rainfall in Georgia makes Phytophthora blight a widespread problem on vegetables. Because this pathogen produces spores (sporangia and zoospores) on the surface of diseased plant tissues, the spores can be easily washed out by splashing rain and can contaminate nearby irrigation sources like irrigation ponds or lakes.
Previous studies indicated that this pathogen can survive in irrigation water that may serve as an inoculum source. Due to a lack of efficient diagnosis systems, the production of vegetables is severely impacted by contaminated irrigation water.
Detection of P. capsici in irrigation water is difficult using traditional culture-based methods because of other microorganisms present in the environment, such as Pythium spp., which usually overgrow on culture media making P. capsici undetectable. To detect the presence of P. capsici spores in water sources (irrigation ponds, runoff, etc.), we developed a hand pump-based filter paper (8-10 µm) method that captured zoospores and was used to amplify DNA of the pathogen through a novel loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) assay designed for specific amplification of P. capsici (Fig. 2).
This method amplified and detected DNA from a concentration as low as 1.2 x zoospores/ml, which was 40 times more sensitive than conventional PCR. No cross-amplification was obtained when closely related species were tested.
Fig. 2: Pictures showing the sampling and processing of recycled water for the detection of Phytophthora capsici in the field.
To validate our detection protocol, water samples from the field where P. capsici was suspected to be present was taken to test the designed method with a practical scenario. Out of the seven farms tested, three were positive for the presence of P. capsici using our hand pump filter paper-based LAMP assay. Only one farm was positive when using the conventional PCR assay (Table 1), showing LAMP to be a more sensitive assay for this method of testing irrigation water.
Table 1. Detection of irrigation water from Southern GA
| Pond name | County, State | Target crops | Filter paper-based LAMP detection | PCR Detection | History of Disease (Y/N) |
| P1 | Tift, GA | Vegetables | + | - | N |
| P2 | Tift, GA | Vegetables | – | – | N |
| P3 | Tift, GA | Vegetables | – | – | N |
| P4 | Tift, GA | Vegetables | + | + | N |
| P5 | Tift, GA | Vegetables | – | – | N |
| P6 | Tift, GA | Vegetables | + | – | N |
| P7 | Tift, GA | Vegetables | – | – | N |
This improved detection method will enable researchers and extension agents to directly utilize the protocol described here to detect P. capsici. spores from a water source in less than two hours. We hope that this will lead to an increase in awareness of using pond water as an irrigation source which will eventually improve disease management of P. capsici, reduce production cost and increase crop yield. This protocol could be adapted to other pathogens that reside, accumulate, or are dispersed in contaminated irrigation systems.
Moving forward, growers should have their irrigation sources like ponds tested for the presence of P. capsici. The Plant Molecular Diagnostic Laboratory, a lab service of the University of Georgia Department of Plant Pathology, is now providing P. capsici testing support for vegetable growers in Georgia. The clinic can accept water samples (generally 2 L water samples per site) to test for the presence of P. capsici. The tests currently available, their pricing, a submission form, and submission information are available at the MDL web page at https://site.caes.uga.edu/alimdl/
https://site.caes.uga.edu/alimdl/files/2018/08/Submission-form-MDL-latest-7-5-18.pdf
Samples can be shipped to the following address.
Plant Molecular Diagnostic Lab
Department of Plant Pathology
Tifton, CAES Campus
Plant Science Building
115 Coastal Way
Tifton, GA 31794
The contact information for questions, etc. from Dr. Ali are as follows:
229-386-7230
229-386-7285
Again, we would highly encourage you to take advantage of this service. If you have questions or need help, please contact your local county extension agent for additional information. It would be good to communicate with the lab so that they can expect the samples on the day of arrival.
By Clint Thompson
Scab disease of pecans has been light so far this year. But could soon change with the recent rain events in the Southeast, says Lenny Wells, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension pecan specialist.
“Scab so far has been light, but we’ve had some pretty scabby weather the last week or so. We’ll see, but I think everybody has been staying on top of it pretty well,” Wells said.
The rainy weather as a result of Tropical Storm Cristobal this week could be a big reason scab disease incidences begin to spike. Wells said it usually takes a couple of weeks before growers start seeing scab as a result of excess rainfall.
“If people were set to spray this week and it’s been raining like it is and they can’t get out there to spray everything like they need to because of the weather, then there may be some that get caught. (But) things are looking pretty good, and everybody’s staying on a good schedule,” Wells said.
Scab is a fungal disease that infects the leaves or nuts of pecan trees. If it hits the nut early enough, scab can cause the pecan to blacken and fall from the tree. Some growers spray between 10 and 12 times during an average year to fight scab, Wells said. Scab thrives on trees that have received moisture. That is why a quick rain event is important and not prolonged rainy weather of several days in a row.
One reason Wells is optimistic this year is the new fungicide that is now in growers’ arsenal.
“We’ve got a new fungicide we’ve got in the mix this year that I think is going to be a big help. A part of it is a chemistry that has two different classes of chemistry in it, and part of it is something we haven’t had before in pecans or been used before. Based on Tim Brenneman’s work it looks like it’ll be a big help for us,” Wells said.
For other pecan-related stories, see pecan crop offers hope.
No evidence indicates that livestock, crops, or products handled by workers involved in production agriculture are sources of COVID-19 infection. However, close contact with coworkers may contribute to spreading the virus.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Department of Labor have provided guidance and recommendations for agriculture owners and operators. Agriculture employers can adapt these same guidelines and recommendations to protect workers at their work sites or in specific work operations.
Distinctive factors that affect farmworkers’ risk for COVID-19 in production agriculture workplaces include the following:
Other factors that may increase risk among some workers include the following:
Farm owners and operators can prevent and slow the spread of COVID-19. Owners and operators should develop a COVID-19 assessment and control plan to protect themselves and farmworkers, in accordance with the CDC Interim Business Guidance for Businesses and Employees. The CDC also provides guidance on how to develop a plan, screen and monitor workers, manage sick workers, and address the return to work of an infected worker.
By Clint Thompson
It is too early to say if this year’s whitefly impact on vegetables and cotton will rival 2017. But University of Georgia (UGA) Cooperative Extension vegetable entomologist Stormy Sparks insists the potential is there.
Sparks estimates that the whitefly population is about the same as a month ago. There have been some reports of populations existing primarily in kale. But there’s also low populations in winter crops that are still out there; namely cabbage and collards.
“The only reports I’ve had of anybody talking about any significant populations have been in kale,” Sparks said. “We haven’t heard of any populations in spring vegetables yet of any significance.”
Growers should have a better idea of this year’s whitefly effect next month once all the cotton has been planted and starts to grow.
“The potential is there. I was on the phone call (the other day) with everybody that does whitefly stuff. Everybody was talking about how it looks like 2017. The truth of the matter is the potential is there, but until you go through the weather conditions to see what happens with weather with management with those crops and management of those crops, you don’t really don’t know what happens,” Sparks said. “(UGA cotton entomologist) Phillip Roberts has for decades been telling me, if he sees whitefly populations in cotton in July, we’re in trouble. You’ll find whiteflies in cotton. But it’s really if you get into populations that are of concern in July, it’s going to be ugly.”
In 2017, whitefly populations showed up as early as May and June.
While colder temperatures do not eliminate whiteflies, they do kill many of their wild hosts. They also slow population development in cultivated hosts. Warmer temperatures this winter allowed for larger whitefly populations to overwinter and become mobile earlier.
Whiteflies cause feeding injury issues in vegetables and transmit two viruses: cucurbit leaf crumple virus and cucurbit yellow stunting disorder virus. Vegetables like squash, zucchini, cucumber, cantaloupe and snap beans are highly susceptible to these viruses. Commercial cultivars that have resistance or tolerance to these pathogens are not available.
Sparks and other specialists continue to preach sanitation with whitefly management. He said farmers have done better in recent years in getting rid of winter vegetables once they are done harvesting. That needs to continue with the spring crops once they are done.
“When you’re done with it, get rid of it. And that’s irrespective of what crop it is or the population level,” Sparks said.
By Clint Thompson
The Sunbelt Ag Expo’s annual field day on July 23 will have a different look this year. Due to the coronavirus pandemic and the strict rules regarding social distancing, this year’s event will feature a drive-thru component for attendees, said Chip Blalock, executive director of the Sunbelt Ag Expo.
“Our field day will go on as planned this year on July 23. It’s going to be a little different this year with all of the COVID-19 regulations and protocols in place. We just thought at this point it was best to do a drive-thru field day where the farmers can enjoy the tour from the comforts of their air-conditioned vehicle,” Blalock said. “We have about 30 stops and we’ll have about 30 videos of each of the presenters downloaded on our website, which you will also be able to access through the Sunbelt Ag Expo mobile app and our YouTube channel.”
The tour will begin at 8 a.m. At each plot, visitors will stop and listen to watch a pre-recorded segment hosted on the Expo website, app and YouTube channel using their cell phone. Researchers and vendors can choose to be at their respective plots for question and answer opportunities from farmers and industry leaders. The tour is scheduled to end at 11:30 p.m.
“Here we are almost in the middle of June and even though things are loosening up somewhat, we still weren’t sure what the protocols would be in July. We seem to think this was the best decision moving forward. This is no reflection on the Sunbelt Ag Expo in October. We are planning on moving forward with it,” Blalock said.
Another important rule to consider this year is that breakfast and lunch will not be served at the field day this year.
The Sunbelt Ag Expo is scheduled for Oct. 20-22.
By Clint Thompson
Today’s talk with U.S. Secretary of Ag Sonny Perdue focuses on imports of Mexican produce. It’s been a concern for farmers who are trying to compete against Mexico.
It was especially concerning this year as growers, especially in the Southeast, also had to overcome challenges with the coronavirus pandemic.
For other testimonials of unfair competition with Mexico, click here.