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  • Sweet Rebound? South Florida Melon Producers Hope to Bounce Back

    South Florida watermelon production could use a productive season following last year’s impact from COVID-19. Unfortunately, wind damage may derail farmers’ hopes.

    “Everything’s beat up from the wind and the cold. The crops that were planted super early more so than the ones that were planted late. I think if the weather stays like it is, the quality will be exceptionally good. But I think yields will be low,” said Greg Collier, Florida watermelon producer.

    Collier said sustained wind speeds reached 30mph with gusts of 45mph.

    “Wind is one of the hardest things there is on a watermelon, and it’s pretty democratic, everybody gets it. We might get a four-inch rain and the guy two miles down the road might miss it altogether,” Collier said. “I might frost or freeze, and you might not. But the wind is the same everywhere. Everybody gets 35mph wind and it beats them up.”

    COVID Impact

    The potential lack of yields is disheartening considering how COVID impacted the market last season. Just as harvests were beginning to start across the South Florida region, the pandemic shut the country down.

    “We experienced no business. When we were rolling into harvest last year, the market was (more than) 40 cents (per pound) on the off-shore Mexican stuff. A couple of guys in Immokalee (Florida) started a few loads and then the COVID deal hit. They sent everybody home. They went to the stores, bought up a bunch of groceries to take home with them and never came back to the stores. Then they started closing the stores down, especially in the northeast,” Collier said.

    “New York got hit real bad, which, that’s one of the prime sales areas for Florida is the New York area; Philly, Baltimore, Boston, New York City. That’s where a ton of our stuff goes to.”

    Collier plans to start harvesting fruit in South Florida in the second week in April. There is fruit on the vine now that is a little bigger than a softball.

    Collier is part of Global Produce Sales, a marketer of watermelons. They’ll have fields in Moore Haven, Florida; Plant City, Florida; North Florida, South Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina and Delaware.

    “We had a phenomenal year in north Florida and Georgia. Indiana was really good. But South Florida was not so much,” Collier said.

  • To Fumigate or not to Fumigate?

    Excessive rains in February continue to impact South Georgia vegetable producers who are trying to plant this year’s crop.

    UGA photo/Fusarium wilt is a fungal disease that can considerably damage a watermelon crop. Fumigation can help with nematode and fusarium control.

    Some fields are still too soggy to apply fumigation, a necessary component of vegetable production in how it controls nematodes and other diseases like fusarium. Farmers are faced with the difficult decision that could impact yields come harvest season: Apply fumigation or don’t?

    “The rain kept everybody out of the field. Everybody’s running a couple of weeks late, probably,” said Ty Torrance, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Vegetable Agent for Colquitt, Tift and Worth Counties. “There were a couple of folks that were able to get some plastic laid. They’re starting to set some plants. There are some plants going into old plastic. But a lot of the new ground is either too wet for them to lay their plastic or they laid it when it was too wet and we’re having a lot of problems with fumigation right now. When you fumigate when it’s too wet, you can trap the gas and it takes a long time for it to come out of there, longer than it normally would.

    “Some people are leaving out the fumigation altogether, so they don’t have to worry about that. That’ll present a whole nother list of problems throughout the season.”

    Farmer-by-Farmer Basis

    Torrance said that producers with access to drip tape can apply nematicides throughout the season that help with nematode management. However, it’s not as effective as fumigation and not all producers utilize drip tape.

    “It is a farmer-by-farmer basis because a lot of it depends on when their plants are going to be ready. How much time do they have before they have to do something?” Torrance said.

    According to the University of Georgia Automated Weather Network, Tifton, Georgia received 8.77 inches of rainfall in February, compared to 6 inches in 2020 and 2.1 in 2019. In Moultrie, Georgia, 8.47 inches were recorded, compared to 6.27 in 2020 and 3.1 in 2019.

    “As widespread as the rain was and as consistent; it wasn’t like we had one big rain, you could do a little bit and then it rained again; it was to the point where they had to stay out of the fields for extended periods of time,” Torrance said.

    Fields still had trouble drying out last week amid sunshine and high temperatures.

    “You get past that top couple of layers of soil and it’s still wet down there, which is the problem with the fumigation. The Telone goes 12, 16, 18 inches deep,” Torrance said. “It’s still wet at that depth.”

  • QLA Deadline: Pecan Producers Reminded of April 9 Date

    Damage from Hurricane Michael in Tift County. By Clint Thompson 10-11-18

    Pecan producers still recovering from Hurricane Michael have three weeks to apply for the Quality Loss Adjustment (QLA) Program. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to extend the deadline from March 5 to April 9 allows farmers extra time to apply for a program that is assisting producers who suffered crop quality losses due to qualifying natural disasters in the 2018 and 2019 crop years.

    Crops that can be covered by federal crop insurance or the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) are considered eligible for QLA.

    Crops must meet the following requirements to be eligible for the program:

    1. Suffered a quality loss due to a qualifying disaster event;
    2. Had a 5%-or-greater quality discount due to the qualifying disaster event.

    According to a USDA press release, the Farm Service Agency (FSA) began accepting applications on Jan. 6 and has received more than 8,100 applications so far.

    Hurricane Michael ravaged the Southeast pecan crop when it moved through the region in October 2018. According to UGA Extension, Georgia pecans suffered $100 million in direct losses to the crop in 2018, $260 million in losses due to lost trees and $200 million in direct losses for future income.

    To apply, contact your local USDA Service Center. Additional information is also available at farmers.gov/quality-loss. Producers can also obtain one-on-one support with applications by calling 877-508-8364.

  • South Florida Thrips Update

    Figure 4. Adult chilli thrips have fringed wings. Photo by Lyle J. Buss, University of Florida

    Various thrips species are causing problems for South Florida vegetable producers. According to the South Florida Pest and Disease Hotline, strawberry farmers have dealt with chili thrips all season in the Manatee Ruskin area. They are also showing up in pepper.

    In the Miami-Dade County area, melon thrips are increasing in populations in various crops.

    Along the east coast, western flower thrips are being found in pepper. From Jupiter, Florida northward, it is mostly Florida flower thrips that are a problem, though they can be controlled with insecticides.

    Thrips are moving into some pepper fields around Immokalee, Florida with a few fields having counts of 10 or more thrips per bloom.

    Click here for thrips management options.  

  • Whitefly Infestations: Pest Numbers Increasing in South Florida

    UGA photo shows whiteflies.

    Whitefly infestations continue to increase in vegetable fields in Southwest Florida. According to the South Florida Pest and Disease Hotline, tomato fields have been greatly impacted.

    Adult whiteflies are swarming young cucurbit plants, especially those transplants that have just been planted in the ground and those direct seeded crops.

    Growers and scouts report that whitefly pressure is increasing in some older eggplant and tomatoes along the east coast. They are moving out of these crops and applying pressure in nearby fields.

    Reports from farmers in Homestead, Florida, indicate that whiteflies are high in tomatoes and other crops. Maybe just as significant is that Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus incidence is moderate to high in the majority of tomato fields.

    Click here for management options.   

  • Mummified: Blueberry Growers Watch Out for Fungal Disease

    UGA photo/Mummy berry disease is caused by the fungus Monilinia vacciniicorymbosi and is an important fungal disease of blueberries.

    South Georgia blueberry producers need to be wary of mummy berry disease. University of Georgia Extension advises growers to initiate sprays for the disease to protect plants that are vulnerable.

    “Growers usually know around green tip, when new leaves are developing and then through bloom, they need to be putting out effective fungicides for control of mummy berry,” said Jonathan Oliver, University of Georgia (UGA) assistant professor and small fruits pathologist. He added that while the disease typically impacts rabbiteye blueberries, it may be a problem this year for southern highbush varieties as well.

    “On southern highbush blueberries, those berries tend to develop a little earlier than rabbiteye, and usually, the mummy berry life cycle doesn’t quite match up right with the southern highbush life cycle. Usually our southern highbush (varieties) escape,” Oliver said. “But our blueberry development right now is several weeks behind where it’s been the last couple of years, and so a lot of our southern highbush happen to fall right in the window where perhaps they also could get infected with mummy berry this year. While it’s usually not a problem for southern highbush, this year maybe a year where it could be.”

    Symptoms

    “It’s a fungus species that first will infect the young leaves and then it will spread to the blooms. After it infects the blooms, any blooms that get infected that produce berries, those berries will be filled with fungus tissue,” Oliver said. “A fungus will grow in the berry and suck all of the moisture out. It basically ends up with a mummified berry. That’s where the disease name comes from.”

    Additional information on fungicides that are available to control mummy berry can be found in the Southeast Regional Blueberry Integrated Management Guide at www.smallfruits.org.

    “Growers of southern highbush don’t always spray, I mean they spray fungicides that probably are going to have efficacy against mummy berry but they don’t spray, specifically targeting mummy berry, usually because they don’t have to. But this year may be a year where they need to,” Oliver said.

  • Record Keeping: Producers Encouraged to Keep Track of Crops’ Productivity

    Proper record keeping is a management practice that all farmers need to be utilizing. It can save producers time and money when deciding what to grow for the upcoming season.

    It’s important to keep proper records of your crops.

    Jessie Boswell, Alabama Regional Extension agent, believes producers will benefit financially if they keep annual records of how productive their crops are. This is especially true for growers who produce multiple crops.

    “I do encourage detailed record keeping for any farmer, but especially for a farmer maybe growing several different types of crops. It’s really important to keep track of the revenue and the costs associated with each specific crop because you really want to be able to analyze each individual crop to see which ones you might want to expand and which ones you might want to cut back on,” said Boswell during a Q&A session on the Alabama Extension Commercial Horticulture Facebook page.

    “It also can be used to compare the profitability of different practices, like say you have one crop where you use conventional tillage, and you have another crop where you no-till. If you look, you can say, I make a lot more money on this no-till operation. I save a lot of money on labor and machinery. Keeping track of those can help you look back and see which specific crops you’re making money on. Instead of your farm as a whole being profitable or unprofitable, you can look and see which crop is your money maker, your cash cow and which one you might be losing money on.”

  • Florida Farmer: I’ve Got a Bad Taste in My Mouth for Mexico

    Count Kim Jamerson as another Florida vegetable producer who is being negatively impacted by imports from Mexico.

    “I’ve got a bad taste in my mouth for Mexico,” said Jamerson in Fort Myers, Florida.

    She farms approximately 1,280 acres of produce in south Florida, including eggplant, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumber and green pepper.

    Jamerson struggles to keep pace with Mexican imports in pepper production. It costs her $9.50 per box to break even, which accounts for labor, diesel and the box itself.

    “They’re bringing in pepper for like $1.95 and they’re bringing it on commission, a whole box of peppers, which means they can sell it for $0.50 a box. I’m not saying that they did, I’m saying that they could,” Jamerson said. “That is a really bad situation.”

    What can be Done?

    Jamerson is trying to coordinate with the Florida Ag Commissioner’s office and Florida Senator Marco Rubio to try to find a reasonable solution. She proposes that a limited amount of pepper be brought into Florida and also believes Mexico needs to be importing at $9.50 per box. That’s the price that farmers must break even for, not even make money off of.

    “The other night at 3 o’clock in the morning, I was out at our farm in my pajamas in pouring down rain trying to save our bell peppers. I’m stupid, because what I should have done was let all those bell peppers drown and collect my insurance I have on it,” Jamerson said. “I would have made more money by collecting the insurance that I had them insured for instead of saving them to compete against a $1.95 box of pepper from Mexico.”

    Bell Pepper Imports

    University of Florida Associate Professor Zhengfei Guan describes in a webinar how much bell pepper imports have risen in the last two decades. In 2000, Florida production totaled more than 600 million pounds, while Mexican imports tallied approximately 300 million pounds. In 2019, Florida production dropped to under 400 million pounds, compared to Mexico with more than a billion pounds.

    The future looks bleak for the future of American farmers. Producers like Sam Accursio are already signaling an end to their agricultural careers in the near future.

    “I don’t see the next generation farming unless they go into some kind of import business and buy produce from out of the country, call themselves farmers and sell it. I don’t see them out there at 3 o’clock in the morning in the pajamas, making no money. Who’s going to do that?” Jamerson added.

  • Heritage Orchard Reclaiming Georgia’s Forgotten Apples

    UGA Extension agents (left to right) Ashley Hoppers, Josh Fuder and Clark MacAllister plant one of the Heritage Orchard’s trees. They located many of the orchard’s varieties through their contacts with local apple growers and other farmers and tree owners. (Photo by Mike Terrazas)

    By Michael Terrazas for CAES News

    The names tick off like racehorses or colors from some fancy catalog: Carolina Red June, Duchess of Oldenburg, Hewe’s Crab and Rabun Bald, Limbertwig and Nickajack and Parks’ Pippin and many more. They’re apples, hundreds of varieties that thrived in orchards across North Georgia a century ago, before an evolving apple industry swept them off shelves and tables, never to return.

    Until now. With the help of a dedicated group of University of Georgia researchers, UGA Cooperative Extension agents and volunteer enthusiasts, Georgia’s lost apple varieties are making a comeback. The newly planted Heritage Apple Orchard, located at UGA’s Georgia Mountain Research and Education Center in Blairsville, is meant to reclaim many of those bygone cultivars and demonstrate why Georgia once was at the center of the U.S. apple industry.

    The Heritage Orchard will soon provide another educational agritourism attraction for the Mountain Research and Education Center, a unit of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. But it will also yield satisfying produce for Georgia consumers and researchers.

    “One very basic benefit is simply to reconnect Georgians with the history, and the agricultural history, of their state,” said Stephen Mihm, associate professor of history in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “But there’s another, very important virtue to this work, which is that the apple cultivars that thrive in Georgia are not typical in their tolerance for heat and humidity. There’s growing interest in tapping into those traits genetically, and that’s not only restricted to apples.”

    Click here for the full story.

  • Statistically Speaking: Data Supports Mexican Imports’ Impact on Florida

    Fruit produced in Mexico.

    Florida producers have been protesting Mexican imports and the devastating impact they’re having on market prices for years. But just how bad have imports from Mexico been in several key commodities?

    University of Florida Associate Professor Zhengfei Guan describes in a webinar how much imports have risen in the last two decades.

    Strawberries

    “In 2000, strawberry imports from Mexico were one-third of the total production in Florida, while in 2019, Mexican imports were two times higher than the Florida production,” Guan said.

    Florida strawberries totaled approximately 220 million pounds in 2000 compared to Mexico’s 70 million. Almost 20 years later, Florida production was about 200 million pounds compared to Mexico’s 405 million.

    Blueberries

    Mexican imports of blueberries were non-existent before 2009. But in 2019 they totaled a little more than 90 million pounds, compared to Florida’s approximate 24 million.

    “The blueberry case is even more surprising. This shows how fast Mexico can catch up once it gets into the game. Imports in 2019 were roughly four times higher than Florida production, growing more than a 100-fold over 10 years,” Guan said.

    Vegetables

    The disparity in production is not isolated to fruits. Florida produced 1.6 billion pounds of tomatoes in 2000, 20% higher than Mexico. But now imports from Mexico are five times higher than Florida production.

    Mexico imported approximately 3.6 billion pounds in 2019 compared to Florida’s approximate 750 million.

    “Florida production has dropped 50% over the last 20 years,” Guan said.

    It’s a similar concern for bell pepper farmers. Florida production in 2000 doubled what was imported from Mexico. But in 2019, Mexican imports totaled more than a billion pounds, compared to Florida which totaled a little more than 300 million.

    “The consequences for Florida is not just shrinking market share but depressed market prices. Over the last 15 years, blueberry prices have dropped from $6.30 per pound to $2.60. The prices for other crops were basically flat,” Guan said.