Two hearings on Aug. 13 and Aug. 20 with the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office will provide growers from Georgia and Florida the chance to voice their concerns over unfair trade.
Rabinowitz
However, one economist is skeptical about the potential impact these hearings will have.
Adam Rabinowitz, Associate Professor and Extension Economist at Auburn University, points to the lack of coverage for specialty crop growers in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) for his lack of confidence in the upcoming hearings.
“It’s certainly important for the farmers to be able to voice their concerns about some of the trade issues that are at hand. It’s going to be interesting to see I guess, to what extent there is actual impact from that,” Rabinowitz said. “When you talk about some of the challenges with trade in the Southeast, Mexico is a big issue there. The fact that nothing was addressed for this region in the USMCA, I’m not sure what the opportunities will be to resolve some of those outstanding issues.”
The hearings will take place virtually. They will provide the U.S. Department of Commerce and Trump Administration an opportunity to hear from seasonal produce growers on the urgent need for federal action on unfair foreign trade.
Even more so this year, Mexican imports into the U.S. were troubling for growers who were struggling to sell produce during the coronavirus pandemic. Florida farmers Sam Accursio said Mexico imported 2 to 3 million pounds of squash per day while he struggled to find buyers, if any at all. Florida farmer Ryan Atwood said the influx of blueberry imports from Mexico contributed to a sharp decline in market prices this year.
“Certainly, the blueberries are a concern, cucumbers and bellpeppers as well. We’ve seen some data there, and of course, tomatoes, even with the tomato suspension agreement; certainly is highly competitive coming out of Mexico,” Rabinowitz said. “Those I’d say are the commodities we’ve seen evidence of that have been impacted pretty significantly. But some of my hesitation in being optimistic comes from the challenge of why nothing was addressed in USMCA.”
Additional information on USTR field hearing dates, deadlines, and submission instructions can be found in the Federal Register notice.
July 31, 2020, Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Senate has passed a resolution designating July 2020 as National Blueberry Month, recognizing the contributions of the U.S. blueberry industry and acknowledging that purchasing blueberries supports farmers, jobs and the economy. The resolution echoes a proclamation from U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue in March.
Senate resolution (S.Res. 656) was sponsored by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and co-sponsored by senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), David Perdue (R-GA) Angus King Jr. (I-ME), Susan Collins (R-ME) and Kelly Loeffler (R-GA). The resolution recognizes that highbush and wild blueberries have an annual economic impact of $4,700,000,000; a harvested area estimated at over 140,000 acres; are produced in 48 states by more than 15,000 farms and their families; and that highbush blueberry production in the U.S. has continually increased, with particular growth in the past two decades, to reach a harvest of 700,000,000 pounds in 2019. It also points to the research-based health benefits of blueberries.
NABC members met with lawmakers in Washington, D.C., in March.
Last spring, members of the North American Blueberry Council (NABC) traveled to Washington, D.C., to encourage lawmakers to support blueberries by signing onto the resolution that reflects the incredible growth, value and impact the blueberry industry has on the economy and communities.
Over 130 participants met with their senators and representatives to share NABC’s policy priorities and help raise the profile of the health benefits blueberries provide, as well as the economic impact blueberry growers have in their communities and the U.S. economy. These efforts influenced the Senate resolution passed yesterday .
“Blueberry growers and others connected to the industry are very appreciative to have their life’s work recognized and celebrated during National Blueberry Month,” said NABC Chair Ken Patterson. “July continues to be our peak season, and this resolution helps draw attention to the important economic and health benefits of blueberries. We’re grateful to the senators who are helping us highlight our industry with this timely resolution.”
Cosmetic damage of western flower thrips on tomatoes by (A) oviposition and (B) feeding (flecking).
By Xavier Martini and Joe Funderburk
Thrips are important pests of tomatoes for two reasons. First, they damage fruit directly by egg-laying or feeding (Figure 1). More importantly, some species also vector tospoviruses that include tomato spotted wilt virus, groundnut ringspot virus and tomato chlorotic spot virus.
These tospoviruses can considerably decrease the crop yield if thrips are not controlled. Thrips acquire tospoviruses during the nymphal stage only, but once acquired they can transmit them to plants throughout their lifetime.
IMPORTANCE OF IDENTIFICATION Two thrips species are of concern to tomatoes in the Southeast: western flower thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis) and tomato thrips (Frankliniella schultzei). Both are particularly good vectors of tospoviruses.
However, other thrips with less economic impact on tomato, such as Florida flower thrips (Frankliniella bispinosa) and flower thrips (Frankliniella tritici),are often found in tomato flowers, sometimes at a higher density than the more damaging thrips. In fact, F. bispinosa and F. tritici compete against the other thrips species that transmit tospoviruses and therefore prevent the spread of tospovirus-associated diseases.
If insecticides are applied when these undamaging species are dominant, the insecticides will eliminate them, and they will be replaced by the invasive species, such as western flower thrips. Therefore, it is of critical importance to identify thrips before applying an insecticide to tomato crops.
Thrips identification is based on specific characteristics only visible under a microscope. For most growers, the best method is to collect tomato flowers in ethanol and send them to a scout, an Extension agent or a state specialist for identification.
CHEMICAL TREATMENTS Different insecticide treatments are available against thrips. Neonicotinoids applied at transplant might be an option in areas where tospovirus-related diseases occur every year. Spinosyns offer some of the best control for thrips. They have the advantage of being compatible with biological control and sometimes with organic agriculture.
It is important to rotate insecticide modes of action during a season to avoid the development of insecticide resistance in thrips populations. The mode of action of each insecticide can be found on the Insecticide Resistance Action Committee website (https://irac-online.org/).
NON-INSECTICIDAL CONTROLS Because identification of thrips is highly recommended before applying an insecticide, it is better to manage thrips using non-insecticidal methods. The addition of companion flowers (such as bidens or coreopsis) on the border of tomato crops increases the density of natural enemies.
Orius species minute pirate bugs are very efficient thrips predators, and they use pollen in companion flowers as a nutritional supplement. Under field conditions, about one predator to 180 thrips is enough for suppression of thrips populations. When the ratio reaches about one predator to 40 thrips, thrips populations are controlled.
It is important that the companion plants flower prior to the tomato crops to ensure the buildup of the natural enemies’ population before they are needed to control the thrips population. Natural enemies are available commercially for thrips control in greenhouses and other protected-culture systems.
The use of UV-reflective mulch instead of the regular black or white mulch is also recommended. UV-reflective mulch disrupts thrips’ host location and reduces significantly the settling of thrips on tomatoes. UV-reflecting mulch is particularly efficient at the earlier stages of the tomato crop (Figure 2). However, as the crop grows, leaves will cover the UV-mulch, and the benefits of the UV-mulch will decrease. At this point, kaolin clay can be applied on tomato crops. Kaolin clay has a repellent effect on thrips and works better on expended leaves.
The combined use of minute pirate bugs, companion plants, UV-reflective mulch and kaolin (Figure 3) has been shown to be highly effective in controlling thrips in field trials conducted at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) North Florida Research and Education Center. If the timing of these different elements is correct, the need for insecticide to control thrips will be sporadic.
Xavier Martini (xmartini@ufl.edu) is an assistant professor and Joe Funderburk is a professor, both at the UF/IFAS North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy.
Anthracnose lesions can occur on leaves and stems, but infections on the fruit have the largest economic impact.
By Pam Roberts
Anthracnose is a serious disease problem that can occur throughout pepper-growing regions worldwide. Extensive outbreaks of the disease have developed on bell and other specialty peppers types, such as hot peppers.
The disease is more common when both the inoculum and warm weather combined with frequent rains occur. Fruit infections cause significant losses of either mature (red, yellow or orange) or immature (green) fruit due to non-marketability.
The causal agents of anthracnose are fungi within the genus Colletotrichum. Species of Colletotrichum cause many common plant diseases on a wide variety of different hosts worldwide. Colletotrichum gloeosporioides and Colletotrichum acutatum are the two species found on pepper in Florida, but they have a host range beyond pepper.
SYMPTOMS AND SPREAD C. gloeosporioides is mainly associated with infecting ripe fruit, whereas C. acutatum produces lesions on immature fruit. Anthracnose lesions can occur on leaves and stems, but infections on the fruit have the largest economic impact.
Fruit symptoms begin as water-soaked lesions that are soft and slightly sunken. As the lesions age, they appear concentric and become covered with a wet, gelatinous spore mass. Fruit infected with C. acutatum will have lesions that are salmon-colored from their spore mass. C. gloeosporioides lesions will generally be darker in appearance.
Peppers that are grown in fields with a history of anthracnose are at higher risk. Rainy weather, occurring with temperatures around 80°F or higher, enhances disease spread and increases disease severity due to the spread of spores via splashing onto fruit. In addition to rain splashing, spores may be moved mechanically by workers or equipment that come into contact with infected plants.
The pathogen is seedborne. Anthracnose may be introduced into the field on infected transplants or it can survive between growing seasons in plant debris or on alternate weed hosts.
MANAGEMENT MEASURES An integrated approach to disease management is required to control anthracnose.
Select seed sources that are certified or known to be pathogen-free.
Transplants should be protected from the disease by eliminating weeds and solanaceous volunteers around the transplant facility.
Fields should have good drainage and be free from infected plant debris. If the disease was previously present, crops should be rotated away from solanaceous plants for at least two years. Field sanitation practices include control of weeds and volunteer peppers plants.
Resistance is available in some varieties of specialty peppers, such as chile, but not in bell peppers. For bell pepper production, a cultivar that bears fruit with a shorter ripening period may allow the fruit to escape infection by the fungus through an earlier harvest.
Wounds are sites of entry for the fungus, so any measures that reduce wounding fruit, such as managing insects and mechanical damage, should help decrease fruit infections. Wounds that can be entry points for Colletotrichum spp. also make the fruit susceptible to other pathogens, such as bacterial soft rot. All crop debris should be destroyed at the end of the season to reduce inoculum survival for infecting subsequent crops.
Organic growers will need to consider crop rotation, scouting to detect and remove infected fruits, and applications of copper and/or biopesticides approved by the Organic Materials Review Institute.
For conventional farms, fungicides are effective in managing anthracnose on pepper, but applications need to begin as soon as fruit is set and continue a weekly schedule thereafter. According to several studies, fungicides that are labeled for anthracnose on pepper were effective when used in rotation with chlorothalonil or mancozeb.
Pam Roberts is a professor at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Southwest Florida Research and Education Center in Immokalee.
The Alabama Pecan Co. was represented as part of Sweet Grown Alabama Day last week on July 22.
More than 150 farmers are part of the Sweet Grown Alabama database. Director Ellie Watson believes the sweetgrownalabama website is an integral part of connecting the state’s producers with its consumers.
“We have a pretty great representation across all counties and all areas of the state. Of course, we’re still looking to grow that database,” Watson said. “We know that 150 folks is just a drop in the bucket of great farmers in the state of Alabama. We’re still looking for great farmers to join our network and become part of this family.”
Watson and other Alabama agricultural leaders continue to promote the “buy local” initiative which focuses on consumers supporting farmers in their state. This new website allows consumers to access information relevant to the commodity they’re searching for as well as determine where growers are located.
“It’s been really tough for consumers to connect with farmers directly up until now. Now consumers have a one-stop shop where they can find all of the local farmers in their area. It may even connect them with farmers who are right down the road,” Watson said.
“One of my growers told me (the other) week that he had a lady who lived not three miles down the road who didn’t even know he existed. Through Sweet Grown Alabama she was able to connect with him. He said she purchased about $250 worth of his product. To find those local farmers and allow consumers to make those connections with folks right in their neighborhood is an invaluable resource.”
Variety of Options
The website is also not limited to traditional fruits and vegetables, either.
“Not only do we have a great listing of produce growers, but we also have farmers who are producing things like beef and pecans and other non-traditional produce products. It really is a network you can find any product that is grown in Alabama,” Watson said. “We don’t grow everything in the state of Alabama, but we encourage consumers, when they have the option and when it’s in season, to purchase from Alabama farmers first.”
Photo courtesy of Treadwell Farms/Shows hemp plants ready to be planted.
One of the first commercial hemp growers in Florida believes the industry is primed for growth in the Sunshine State.
“All of the skills and experience and ability to make what you need, to observe and adapt to your environment, those are crucial skills to being successful with the crop and Florida farmers are going to know how to grow plants in Florida and crops in Florida better than anybody else,” said Jammie Treadwell, co-owner of Treadwell Farms in Eustis, Florida. “We always encourage farmers that, they know more than they think they do and they’re going to come with new and innovative ideas for the hemp industry that aren’t new and innovative to them.”
Photo courtesy of Treadwell Farms/Shows co-owner Jammie Treadwell standing in front of a hemp field.
Treadwell said the first of her greenhouse-grown seedlings went into the field last week, more than a year after Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the State Hemp Program into law. The signing in 2019 allowed the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to regulate a state hemp program.
Since Treadwell Farms produces hemp in a greenhouse setting, Jammie is confident they will be able to produce a crop in three, if not, four different growing cycles over the course of the year. Supplemental lighting allows hemp to grow during the winter months.
“We’re starting small this first season, just because we want to make sure everybody has a good season and that they have their infrastructure dialed in, that they can get a handle on things before they expand. For us, we are approved for just over 4 acres. I know compared to some farmers out there that’s pretty small, but we can go multiple cycles,” Treadwell said.
Working with Other Farmers
Her farm also assists other growers in the Central Florida region with germinating seeds and rooted cuttings. The healthier the plant is going into the ground and more acclimated it is to the environment equates to a better chance for success.
Another reason for optimism about the crop’s future in Florida is the constant flow of information being shared among farmers who want to see hemp sustainable.
“We’re working with other farmers in our community as each one of them has something to add. We’re working with large vegetable growers. They have ideas that they’re sharing with us. We’re working with other nursery men and women. We’re working with citrus growers,” Treadwell said. “My family has a peach grove, we have citrus. All of those crops have ideas and skills and techniques that can be applied to this new crop. One of the things we’ve really been trying to create is a community among these different farmers to share ideas. That’s the great thing about Ag, most people are willing to help each other.”
Photo taken by Clint Thompson/Shows a box of recently purchased Georgia peaches.
Time is running out on Georgia’s peach crop this year. Jeff Cook, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Agriculture and Natural Resources agent for Peach and Taylor counties, confirmed that the state’s producers only have about a week left before they are done harvesting this year’s crop.
“We’ll still ship, maybe for another week. We’re getting to the end here,” Cook said.
Cook said Georgia peach producers normally harvest through the second week in August. Some varieties were harvested earlier this season. High temperatures in the springtime were a likely factor.
“I think a lot of it was the heat in March, the heat directly after bloom,” Cook said. “But it wasn’t across the board that everything acted the same. Some things were early, some things were normal time. Some things held on. I’ve got a Scarlet Prince (variety) in my research orchard that we usually pick the last couple of days of June and first of July. We were picking the second week of June through the first week in July. We picked them for three weeks and they were good, commercially acceptable peaches.”
Good Year Overall
He added that it has been a good year overall for farmers.
“We had some speedbumps early on with some early varieties that got a little cold damage,” Cook said. “It looks like quality has been good because I haven’t seen a lot of dump trucks leaving packing sheds.
“I was actually at Lane’s yesterday with my son and he was like, ‘What is that thing coming out of the packing shed?’ I was like, ‘That’s the conveyor belt that takes all of the bad peaches.’ All that was coming off the conveyor belt was leaves, that’s all that was falling through. That’s always a good sign.”
According to UGA Extension, Georgia produces more than 130 million pounds of peaches every year. There are two commercial peach-growing regions in Georgia. The central region is the largest with about 1.6 million peach trees, which comprises 75% of the state’s production. The southern region produces about 30 million pounds of peaches annually.
By Ayanava Majumdar, Rammohan Balusu and Neil Kelly
Many pests feed on squash from seedling to harvest. They are generally broken down into two groups: the chewing insects and the sucking insects. Chewing insects of squash consist of common pests like cucumber beetle, squash vine borer larva and pickleworm. Sucking insect pests consist of aphids, squash bugs and whiteflies. The pests a squash grower experiences may depend on location.
PREVENTION STRATEGIES Remember that prevention of pests is the No. 1 goal of organic integrated pest management (IPM) systems. Rapid control after pest establishment becomes a difficult aim later in the production season. Cultural control tactics that include selecting virus-resistant varieties, timely planting and harvest (reduces pickleworm buildup), crop rotation and timely removal of crop debris after harvest (reduces squash vine borer buildup), consistent irrigation and trap cropping are some basic preventive approaches, also called Level 1 control.
Perimeter trap cropping with Baby Blue and New England Hubbard squash in a mixed system is effective in reducing cucumber beetle and squash bug damage to yellow squash (main crop).
PEST EXCLUSION FABRIC For Level 2 control, growers should use temporary or permanent pest exclusion fabric to create a barrier between insect pests and the main crop. Two lightweight materials tested in Alabama include the Super-Lite Insect Barrier (Gardens Alive, Inc.) and AgroFabric Pro 19 (Seven Springs Farm, Inc.). Both these materials look like lighter versions of the common row cover used for frost protection, but these materials are much lighter with 85 to 95 percent light and rain penetration.
The trick is to put these light fabrics on low hoops (inverted loops) almost immediately after transplanting or after the seeds have germinated. These materials deflect much of the aphids and squash vine borers that fly early in the season. Squash plants can be grown inside the fabric for several weeks and removed or partially opened when flowering begins. Growers can also release beneficial insects like lacewings and lady beetles under the fabric for controlling accidental pest infestations.
For both trap crops and pest exclusion tactics, check out the short IPM videos on the Beginning Farm Project channel at www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkNoAmOtt___MKj6IBxvWzOdWP0btBq4D.
INSECTICIDE USE Growers also have a wide range of organic insecticides to choose from (Level 3 control). See the Organic Materials Review Institute website (www.omri.org) to find hundreds of approved organic products.
Remember to scout squash crops for timely pest detection and identification, then use insecticides per the label with equipment that gives good coverage. For example, highly mobile squash bug adults are difficult to control with natural pyrethrin and spinosad, but the flightless small nymphs are far better targets for organic spray applications.
Several premix insecticides are available commercially today in a variety of packaging, making them affordable for farmers. Squash vine borer and pickleworm larvae are internal pests, which are difficult to manage with topical spray applications. Initiate timely sprays with targeted placement where insect pests are hidden.
Don’t quit spraying too soon since weather patterns can reduce insecticide persistence. Always spray in the evening hours when bees are not around and so that the solution can dry out overnight. Stop spray applications of organic materials when pests become inactive. You can save on the cost of insecticides and protect natural enemies this way.
Finally, it is recommended that growers get in touch with Extension personnel in their state to develop an IPM strategy suitable for their farm. Producers in Alabama can download the Farming Basics mobile app to keep in touch with Alabama Extension. Subscribe to the Alabama IPM Communicator e-newsletter (www.aces.edu/ipmcommunicator) to stay informed throughout the season.
Ayanava Majumdar is an Extension professor and Rammohan Balusu is a research fellow, both at Auburn University. Neil Kelly is a regional Extension agent with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System.
Initial design of the low-cost robotic sprayer for precision weed control in vegetable production: main components of the smart sprayer (A) and self-reconfigured and self-adjustable design for easy field deployment in a variety of vegetable fields (B).
By Yiannis Ampatzidis
Vegetable growers face a variety of challenges, including pest and diseases, labor shortages and climate change. How can new advancements in technology help growers address these challenges? Can technology improve crops, reduce production costs and protect the environment? How can technological innovations be incorporated into traditional farming to improve production practices?
In the last few decades, several “smart” technologies have been developed for vegetable production and processing. However, growers are confronted with a variety of challenges when considering adopting new technology or adjusting existing technology. Growers are being offered solutions that might not work in their specific production system or might not be economically feasible. This article presents examples of state-of-the-art technologies that may be used in vegetable production today or in the near future!
SIMPLIFY SURVEYING Field surveys for disease/pest scouting and to assess plant stress are expensive, labor intensive and time consuming. Since labor shortage is a major issue in vegetable production, small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with various sensors (remote sensing) can simplify surveying procedures, reduce the labor cost, decrease data collection time and produce critical and practical information.
For example, recently UAVs and remote sensing have allowed growers to constantly monitor crop health status, estimate plant water needs and even detect diseases. The precision agriculture team (@PrecAgSWFREC) at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Southwest Florida Research and Education Center (SWFREC) developed a cloud-based application called Agroview (http://agroview.farm/login.php).
Agroview can process, analyze and visualize data collected from UAVs and other aerial platforms (e.g., small planes and satellites). This technology utilizes machine learning (an application of artificial intelligence) to detect single plants and assess plant size and stress. Agroview and UAVs were initially used to create plant inventories in citrus (see a video demonstration at https://twitter.com/i/status/1202671242647490560) and to detect specific diseases in vegetables with high accuracy. Early detection and eradication of infected plants is crucial to controlling disease and pest spread throughout the field.
SMART SPRAYERS
Most conventional sprayers apply agrochemicals uniformly, even though distribution of pests and diseases is typically patchy, resulting in waste of valuable compounds, increased costs, crop damage risk, pest resistance to chemicals, environmental pollution and contamination of products. Contamination can be related to run-off after application, discharge from drainage and off-target deposition of spray due to wind (spray drift). This contamination can be significantly reduced through optimization of spraying technology.
Spray drift of agrochemicals occurs during every application and accounts for a loss of up to 50 percent of the agrochemical used. Minimizing the negative impacts of agrochemicals (and spraying technologies) is a major global challenge.
More than 90 percent of the acreage of crops in the United States are being sprayed with herbicides. It is estimated that $26 billion is spent on herbicides (more than 3 billion pounds) each year. This overuse of chemicals creates herbicide-tolerant weeds and approximately 250 known species of resistant weeds.
In recent decades, several smart technologies have been developed for pest detection and for optimizing spraying applications. These new spraying technologies have shown an important improvement in efficiency and safety by adopting the latest advances in electronics, artificial intelligence (AI) and automation.
One example is the See & Spray machine developed by Blue River Technology (www.bluerivertechnology.com) for weed control in arable crops. See & Spray utilizes computer vision and AI to detect and identify individual plants (such as cotton) and weeds and then applies herbicide only to the weeds. See how this technology works at https://youtu.be/gszOT6NQbF8. This machine can reduce the required quantity of herbicide by more than 90 percent compared to traditional broadcast sprayers. However, this technology was designed for arable crops and might not be a cost-effective solution for specific vegetable production systems.
Another low-cost smart sprayer has been designed and developed by the UF/IFAS team for precision weed management in vegetables. In the initial evaluation experiments, smart technology was able to accurately detect and distinguish weeds from crops and apply chemicals only on specific weed(s), thus avoiding crops and areas without weeds. See a video demonstration of this technology at https://twitter.com/i/status/1045013127593644032.
Recently, the precision ag team, in collaboration with Abhisesh Silwal (Carnegie Mellon University) and Panos Pardalos (UF), received funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Research Foundation (award #2020-67021-30761) to improve and fully automate this smart sprayer. This novel robotic sprayer (or fleet of sprayers) was designed to be self-reconfigured and self-adjustable for easy field deployment (Figure 1). With this design, the robot can reconfigure itself (Figure 1b) to manage weeds in a variety of vegetable fields (e.g., with different row spacing and raised bed sizes).
ROBOTIC HARVESTING
Fresh-market vegetables are quickly perishable and virtually 100 percent are hand-harvested. Vegetable growers face increasing shortages of laborers, which in turn, drive up harvest costs. Mechanical and robotic harvesting systems for vegetable growers could simultaneously decrease their dependence on manual labor, reduce harvesting costs and improve overall competitiveness in the market.
In one example, Harvest Croo Robotics, a Florida company, is developing a robotic harvester for strawberries that does not require growers to radically change the way they currently grow crops. This technology successfully harvested berries during the 2019–20 season. It could address the labor shortage problem and increase grower profit.
Yiannis Ampatzidis (i.ampatzidis@ufl.edu) is an assistant professor at the UF/IFAS SWFREC in Immokalee, Florida.
Photo submitted by Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries/Shows bag of unsolicited seed sent to an Alabama resident.
By Maggie Lawrence
AUBURN UNIVERSITY, Ala. — How much harm could a package of mystery seeds do? Scientists with the Alabama Cooperative Extension System agree that unsolicited seed packets being delivered in Alabama and across the country could pose a real threat to native ecosystems and possibly to people.
Threat of Invasive Species
Nancy Loewenstein, an invasive plant expert with Alabama Extension, said the seeds could be potentially invasive.
“These seeds could be from a known invasive species, like kudzu or cogongrass or they could be a weedy species with invasive potential,” Loewenstein said. “While it’s possible these seeds do not pose a threat, people should never plant seeds received in this fashion.”
Invasive species (flora and fauna) threaten the environment in the following ways: reduce productivity of forests, rangeland and crop land, become weeds in gardens and lawns, reduce native biodiversity and wildlife habitat, limit land access for recreation (hiking, birding, fishing, hunting), can be poisonous and/or injurious to humans and livestock, can potentially hybridize with native species alter ecological processes (e.g., water cycling, nutrient cycling, fire cycles) and cost time and money to manage and control.
“Invasive species can cause a great deal of damage to native ecosystems and agriculture, including significant economic damage,” she said. “A 2005 study estimated costs associated with invasive species totaled $120 billion a year, and those costs have likely risen since that time.”
Threats of Pathogens and Insects
Kassie Conner, an Alabama Extension plant pathologist, said these mystery seeds could be harboring diseases, among other things.
“Plant pathogens can be transmitted through seed,” Conner said. “They can be inside the seed, on the outside of the seed or be present in the seed lot without obvious damage. These pathogens can include fungi, bacteria, viruses and nematodes.”
Conner said people could introduce a plant disease into their garden if they planted these seeds. “Depending on the pathogen and the plant species, one infected seed planted in an otherwise healthy garden can cause complete yield loss,” she said. “Once a pathogen is introduced, many can survive for one to more than 10 years in the environment. Some can survive for longer than that.”
If disease and invasive potential are not bad enough, Extension entomologist Charles Ray said these seeds could contain damaging insects.
“There are a number of insects that feed in seeds as larvae,” Ray said. “In these seeds, you might find any one of a large number of pests that entered during seed storage.”
What to Do with Mystery Seeds
According to Ray, seed shipments normally would be subject to inspection and quarantine procedures. For example, in 2017, USDA-APHIS cleared more than 17,000 shipments containing over 1.6 billion plant units and approximately 1,874 tons of seeds, intercepting 817 quarantine pests. Packaging on these mystery seeds has indicated that it contained jewelry rather than seeds.
Officials believe this is an effort to avoid inspection, which is a form of agricultural smuggling. Loewenstein, Conner and Ray all agree that it is extremely important that people DO NOT OPEN the package, DO NOT PLANT the seeds and DO NOT DISCARD them. They also say it is important people report receiving these packages.
The Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries (ADAI) continues to receive reports from citizens who received unsolicited packages from China containing seeds. ADIA is currently collecting seed packages from recipients and is testing their contents for unknown compounds, noxious weed seed and also invasive species. This testing will determine if they contain anything that could be of concern to U.S. agriculture or the environment.
Reporting Seeds
ADAI has established an on-line reporting system for Alabama residents who received suspicious seeds they did not order. Visit www.agi.alabama.gov/reportseeds and provide the requested information. At the end of the on-line form, there are directions for consumers on how to store the seeds properly until an ADAI representative contacts them. People should hold onto the seeds and the packaging, including the mailing label, until someone from ADAI contacts them with further instructions.
More Information
Currently, there is not any evidence indicating this is something other than a brushing scam where people receive unsolicited items from a seller who then posts false customer reviews to boost sales. For further information, contact the ADAI’s Ag Compliance section at 334-240-7304.
