The July issue of VSCNews magazine focuses on a variety of topics, including machine harvesting of blueberries, strawberry pests and diseases and technology for vegetable production.
Blueberry growers and packers are adopting the latest innovations and technology to reduce harvesting costs and put less reliance on contract laborers. Fumiomi Takeda, a research horticulturalist with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, West Virginia and Steven Sargent, professor and Extension postharvest specialist at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), discuss the results from a study with USDA and several land-grant institutions, comparing different harvesting methods of blueberries.
Takeda returns for another article, this time joined by Wojciech Janisiewicz, a research plant pathologist at the USDA Agricultural Research Service Appalachian Fruit Research Station in Kearneysville, West Virginia. They take a look at how USDA researchers are successfully using Ultraviolet light to control pests and diseases in strawberry production.
Vegetable growers face a variety of challenges. However, new advancements in technology may help growers address these production issues. Yiannis Ampatzidis, an assistant professor at UF, presents growers with examples of state-of-the-art technologies that may be useful in vegetable production today or in the near future.
Tomato and Pepper Spotlight
The crop spotlight returns in July, this time with a focus on peppers and tomatoes.
Xavier Martini, an assistant professor, and Joe Funderburk, a professor, both at the UF/IFAS North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy, Florida, provide tomato growers with thrip management strategies.
Anthracnose is a serious disease that occurs across pepper-growing regions worldwide. Pam Roberts, a professor at the UF/IFAS Southwest Florida Research and Education Center (SWFREC) in Immokalee, Florida shares management measures with growers.
In the tomato and pepper spotlight, Gene McAvoy, associate director for stakeholder relations at the UF/IFAS SWFREC, shares some tips and tricks with growers on how to select varieties with profit potential.
VSC Expo Set For Aug. 12-13
Finally, readers will get a preview of the upcoming Citrus Expo and Vegetable & Specialty Crop Expo.
The annual event will take place Aug. 12-13 at the Lee Civic Center in North Fort Myers, Florida. Growers can register here and automatically be entered for a chance to win a John Deere gun safe courtesy of Everglades Equipment Group. To learn more about the Citrus Expo and Vegetable & Specialty Crop Expo, including host hotel information, visit http://citrusexpo.net/. To receive future issues of VSCNews magazine, visit click here.
The Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association is accepting applications for Class 10 of its Emerging Leader Development Program (ELDP). The deadline for submission is Sept. 1. The program, which launched in 2011, develops leaders to be strong advocates for Florida agriculture.
Since then nearly 100 participants have graduated from the program. Sessions and production trips provide a wealth of information on the many issues facing the industry. The year-long program includes seminars provided by FFVA staff members and other experts, meetings with legislators and state officials in Tallahassee, Florida and visits to specialty crop production areas in Florida and California. Ultimately, ELDP graduates can get involved to strengthen the future of specialty crop agriculture.
File photo shows bacterial spot disease in tomatoes.
By Clint Thompson
Bacterial spot in tomatoes has been observed in various locations in Alabama, according to Ed Sikora, professor and Extension plant pathologist in the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at Auburn University.
He believes the excess rainfall and abnormal temperatures contributed to the disease being more problematic this year.
“I think this year with the moisture we’ve had this spring and slightly cooler temperatures, I think it’s more of a problem than normal. In talking with the growers, it appears to be a yearly problem,” Sikora said. “We were in these fields four weeks ago and we had a fairly hard time finding the disease, it would just be in small pockets. Then (last week) when I was out sampling in Mobile (Ala.), it was throughout the field to the top of the upper canopy of the plant. It can move pretty swiftly.”
What is bacterial spot?
According to University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, bacterial spot attacks the stems, petioles, leaves and fruit. Spots are circular and brown and become water-soaked during periods of heavy rains. Symptoms on the fruit itself are tiny raised blisters.
“You can get some defoliation, some blight of the leaves, which I think can have an effect on yield. How much? I do not know. It can get to the fruit, you can get some fruit lesions,” Sikora said. “That can make them unmarketable.”
The disease is spread by rain, workers and tools. The best method for control is to rotate crops and field sites and remove any plant debris and eliminate potential hosts.
“Typically, the disease will often come in on transplants, so it’s very hard to control in the transplant house. Sometimes it can survive on debris in the field,” Sikora said. “Some of these growers are not rotating, they just don’t have the room.”
Resistance Problem
Sikora estimates that between 75% and 80% of populations of the disease pathogen are resistant to copper, which has been the chemical product of choice for growers. It will keep the populations down but does not clean it up entirely. Tomato growers are tolerating the disease instead of controlling it completely.
“They’re seeing the same problems in Florida and I’m sure Georgia and other places. This resistance is not a new phenomenon, but it’s been developing over time. Growers will still be spraying copper and hopefully they can knock down populations a bit,” Sikora said. “Probably our best bet will be developing resistant varieties. The same disease also goes to peppers. But when you start searching peppers, you’ll see that peppers, certain varieties have resistance to this pathogen. If you have a resistant variety, you don’t have to worry about spraying copper. At this point, I don’t recall any bacterial spot resistant tomatoes on the market.”
University of Georgia researchers are working on natural solutions to weed problems in row crops as government regulations of chemical herbicides grow stricter.
Test plots at the the J. Phil Campbell Research Farm located near Watkinsville, Georgia, show (from left) cereal rye, no cover crop, living white clover mulch and crimson clover approximately three weeks after cotton planting. Areas in red indicate where Palmer amaranth seed was planted and will be monitored for suppression and reproduction over the next several years.
Earlier in June, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals pulled registrations for the use of all dicamba products for row-crop production. The herbicide, which has been around since the late 1960s, became more widely used with the introduction of chemical-resistant cotton and soybean varieties in 2016 that were cultivated in response to growing weed resistance. The herbicide has been at the center of increased controversy over its utilization in field crops due to inadvertent drift onto sensitive crops.
With the increasing loss of effective chemistries, either due to weed resistance or through legislation, growers need more tools to choose from when tackling economically threatening weeds, especially as farmers continue to face increasingly erratic environmental conditions and other challenges.
Nick Basinger
“Anything we can do to help create more consistency should help growers do their job better,” said Nick Basinger, assistant professor of weed science in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at UGA’s College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Basinger is leading a research group that is examining the potential use of cover crops as part of an integrated weed management program in a number of commercial agricultural systems in Georgia. One of the benefits of cover crops is their ability to suppress weeds, such as Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri), during fallow periods between cash crops by preventing weed seeds from germinating.
“The goal of our work is to look at ways to manage crop and non-crop areas and try to take advantage of all the tools in the toolbox. Assessing what tools we have for each system, what tools we can potentially develop, then where the strengths and weaknesses are for those tools and what the ‘breaking points’ are so that we can develop comprehensive management practices,” explained Basinger. “This allows us to develop production systems to optimize weed management and gives growers the most advantage.”
Cover crops are widely used throughout the Midwest U.S. in a number of production systems, so much of UGA’s research is being adapted from those systems to fit climate and soil demands in the Southeast. While cover crops have already been successfully used by some growers in parts of Georgia, the implementation is slow among farmers, as the body of research for growing cover crops in this region is still relatively limited.
Basinger and his team have eight to 10 projects underway in the Piedmont region of Georgia, with some of the work happening at the Southeast Georgia Research and Education Center in Midville. Multistate projects studying winter cover crops and summer cover crops will help researchers provide better recommendations for growers during those fallow periods between cash crops.
Winter cover crops are usually planted in the fall after a cash crop has been harvested and will remain in the ground throughout the winter months. A summer cover crop is a quickly established cover crop that’s seeded between summer and winter cash crops to keep the soil covered and accumulating nitrogen.
Summer cover crops can be used successfully in vegetable production because of the quick turnaround time before the next cash crop needs to go in the ground. Sorghum-sudangrass hybrids and sunn hemp, a warm-season annual legume, are quick to establish and rapidly put on biomass, making them great candidates for summer cover crops in Georgia.
“Once projects are well established in the Piedmont, we will look to partner with growers in south Georgia,” said Basinger.
This is the Basinger team’s first year working with cover crops in cotton production in the Piedmont. Because cotton is harvested later in the season, the team is looking at the potential for using cover crops that perform well early in the season within the cotton system.
“This research is actually partially funded by Cotton Incorporated. They are interested in looking at integrated weed management, which is very exciting,” said Basinger.
Winter cover crops used in the project are crimson clover and Wrens Abruzzi rye. Basinger is also adapting and evaluating a living mulch system in cotton using white clover, a spinoff project from UGA crop and soil sciences Professor Nick Hill’s previous work in corn production.
David Weisberger, a doctoral candidate working with Basinger, is focusing on this research at the J. Phil Campbell Research Farm located near Watkinsville, Georgia. Research plots were sown with a known number of Palmer amaranth seeds in the selected cover crop species plots, and treated, bare-ground rows are used as control plots for comparison. Research will evaluate whether cover crops can suppress weeds over time by quantifying weed suppression, emergence counts, growth rates and fecundity.
“The control plots are consistently full of weeds, whereas the cover crop plots are performing well because they limit the amount of light that weed seeds receive and reduce soil temperatures that are essential for Palmer amaranth germination,” said Basinger.
Thus far, the team has observed the best results from the living mulch and cereal rye, but they are examining other important trade-offs that growers need to be aware of, such as water use requirements, shading issues and the potential for cover crops to compete for resources.
“Originally, our research started as a weed focus, but we quickly realized this has more facets that need assessment, so we’ve adapted this research to provide a multidisciplinary approach,” Basinger said.
In addition to looking at cover crops’ potential to suppress weeds in cotton, UGA crop and soil sciences researchers Nandita Gaur and Matthew Levi are studying hydrology and infiltration rates and soil health parameters including organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus and pore space. Weisberger and UGA entomologist Bill Snyder are also looking at this project from an insect pest management approach.
“This is just one tool in the toolbox — it’s not a cure-all — but we hope to demonstrate that, over time, cover crops have the potential to increase yields, minimize weed seed banks, improve soil health, reduce erosion and limit the amount of costly chemical inputs farmers need to apply for a successful harvest,” explained Basinger. “The beauty of this research is we assume all the risk and work out the problems first, then we are able to disseminate that information to growers so they can make the best decisions for their specific operations.”
To learn more about what’s going on with Basinger’s research and stay up to date on what’s going on in the world of UGA weed science, follow him and his team on Instagram and Twitter (@ugaweeds). For more information on the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, visit cropsoil.uga.edu.
University of Georgia photo/Shows presence of downy mildew disease.
By Clint Thompson
Grape producers in north Alabama and north Georgia need to be wary of downy mildew disease. It has been confirmed in vonifera grapes in two separate Georgia locations, says Phil Brannen, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension fruit disease specialist.
“My hope is that if folks are spraying well, if they’re actually effective in spraying the vines and keeping fungicides on the vines, hopefully they won’t see this,” Brannen said.
Phil Brannen
He said initial symptoms of downy mildew are “oil” spots on the upper leaf surface with white, fluffy spore formation on the underside of the leaf. The important factor for grape producers to consider is protecting your leaves. As Brannen often preaches to his students at UGA, “plants don’t do well without leaves.”
“What we more often see with downy mildew on grapes and the susceptible varieties is that it will actually infect the leaves and you’ll get so much infection potentially if you don’t get enough fungicide out in a timely fashion, you could actually lose your leaves,” Brannen said. “If you lose your leaves, even though you have grapes that look fine … you cannot mature a grape for wine in that way. You’re going to have a real bad wine that would come from those grapes. You don’t want that to happen.”
First Discovered
Brannen said he first discovered downy mildew in a vineyard in west Georgia. But last week it showed up in his research plots in Watkinsville, Georgia.
“The secondary thing is if you lose enough leaves then you don’t store enough carbohydrates to the root system to survive the winter and you’ll have winter damage.”
Brannen cautions growers who are scouting for downy mildew to not confuse it with powdery mildew symptoms. In his Extension blog, Brannen said, “If you falsely identify downy mildew as powdery mildew, you are likely to start an aggressive spray program for powdery mildew that just allows the downy mildew to only get worse.”
Brannen provides a video on how to properly identify the presence of downy mildew.
He recommends incorporating highly efficacious materials such as Zampro, Revus, Ridomil Gold MZ (note the pre-harvest interval), etc. in spray programs moving forward.
Rain Contributes to Disease
The wet conditions have only fueled downy mildew’s fire in recent weeks.
“We’re getting a tremendous amount of rain in the last week or two. It seems like it rains every couple of days, if not every day. A lot of pop-up thunderstorms. That wets the leaves. The morning dews have been really wet. We tried to spray on Monday, went up to Blairsville (Georgia) to spray and we were just covered up in wetness,” Brannen said.
With thousands of additional COVID-19 cases being added each day in Florida, Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried called Thursday for a statewide requirement that people wear masks in public places.
Nikki Fried Florida Agriculture Commissioner
Many local governments have approved mask requirements as the number of cases has surged this month, but Gov. Ron DeSantis has declined to issue a statewide order. Fried, the only Democrat on the state Cabinet, has been highly critical of the Republican governor’s handling of the pandemic.
In a prepared statement Thursday, Fried described a statewide mask requirement as “common sense” and pointed to other states that have imposed such requirements.
“Everybody should be wearing masks,” Fried told The News Service of Florida this week. “We know that the masks are not going to stop the spread, but it certainly will slow it down. We also need to reinforce that COVID is not behind us. So, everybody needs to stay vigilant. Everybody needs to continue social distancing.”
The Florida Department of Health on Thursday, reported an additional 5,004 COVID-19 cases, bringing the total to 114,018. The department also reported 46 additional deaths, bringing the death toll from the disease to 3,327.
With the majority of his spring and summer crop harvested and sold, Florida vegetable farmer Sam Accursio reflects on the challenges and struggles he faced this year amid the coronavirus pandemic and Mexico’s daily exports of produce into the U.S.
“With our vegetable season, way back to February when things started shutting down and then in March and April; in March it was just very tough to operate with no restaurants opening. Then in April, it kind of smoothed out a little bit. Then as we were ending our season it started getting real bad, thinking about the growers up above us and it must have been a horrible situation for them entering their season right in the middle of everything shut down,” Accursio said. “The early part of our year was good. Mexico wobbled a few times with weather. Every time they wobbled or got some kind of serious rain or cold, everybody comes to the Southeast to buy produce. That happened a few times and made it interesting early on.”
Accursio operates in Homestead, Florida and is in the process of finishing his okra harvests. He is also planting his cover crops and fixing machinery, typical producer responsibilities when the crops are not in the ground. He will plant his fall crop in September.
Alternative Ways to Sell Produce
He was one of many producers in the Sunshine State who felt gloom in March through June. When the pandemic struck in mid-March, restaurants closed their doors. When expected buyers of Florida produce shut down for multiple months, it forced farmers to think outside of the box in how they sold their crops.
Accursio posted on social media about produce for sale as part of his new marketing initiative, selling directly to consumers. Cars lined up for a two-hour wait the first day. He sold 40,000 pounds followed by 60,000 pounds the following week. It was an amazing turnaround for a farmer who is contemplating something similar in the fall but on a smaller scale.
“Time will tell if it’s something we can do to provide a service to the local community. My local community, there’s 2 to 3 million people here. I have all of Miami, and south of Orlando there’s 8.2 million people. Just give me that market, I’ll be happy,” Accursio said.
University of Georgia photo/Shows fruit split in blueberries.
By Clint Thompson
A difficult year for the blueberry industry, which started in Florida amid the coronavirus pandemic, continued in Georgia. Farmers reported fruit splits and yeast rot in their rabbit-eye blueberry crop. The result was a down year where packing houses closed because of the lack of quality fruit coming in.
Excess Rainfall the Culprit?
Jonathan Oliver, University of Georgia small fruits pathologist, said rainfall is the main contributor for fruit splits in blueberries this year, which left them vulnerable to disease infections like yeast rot.
Jonathan Oliver
“They’re likely very related to one another. The fruit splits are an issue that’s commonly seen if we get rain or a lot of irrigation on the fruit itself if the fruit is near ripening. When the fruit is getting close to getting fully ripe, the walls of the fruit, the skin has expanded as far is it can expand. If you get water on the outside of the fruit, the fruit can suck that through the skin. But the skin can’t expand any further. It’ll just pop the berry,” Oliver said. “You’ll start to get splits either near the end of the berry or the whole berry can just split into.
“Once you have fruit that’s starting to split, you can get lots of things in there, including yeast rot. The fungus that causes yeast rot is just naturally present all over the place. It’s not likely an unexpected find to find the fungus but it doesn’t usually cause a major issue on blueberries. But it can if the fruit is wounded in some other way. We think the splits, which were probably caused by the heavy rainfall we had for two to three weeks prior to (growers) starting to harvest some of these rabbit-eye varieties led to the splits which led to the rampant infection with this fungus which causes yeast rot.”
What does yeast rot do?
Oliver said yeast rot can cause fruit to rapidly collapse and take on a wet, slimy appearance. Fruit heavily affected by yeast rot may have a distinct fermented odor.
Water damage on blueberries right before harvest can also occur if overhead irrigation is used, though, most farmers know to abstain from doing this. Oliver said fruit splits happens from time to time but seems to be a much bigger issue this year.
The damage leaves the fruit unmarketable. Several growers had loads rejected because of low quality fruit.
“The fruit having splits, even if they’re just small splits near the end, they’re not going to be quality fruit. They’re not going to hold up very well through the process of harvesting them, packing them, shipping them and getting them to the consumer. Packing houses will usually look for low quality fruit initially, so they make sure they’re not sending low quality fruit on that won’t be purchased,” Oliver said.
Fruit splits appears to also be a problem isolated to Georgia.
“I talked to Phil Harmon, who’s the Extension pathologist there at UF, and he said he’s not seen major problems with yeast rot in Florida before. He was surprised to hear we were having these problems. I don’t believe they had a similar issue there,” Oliver said.
Ant damage on young hemp plants remains a problem for growers in the Southeast.
Katelyn Kesheimer, Auburn University Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist, fears ants will continue to be a nuisance since hemp plantings will continue through July.
Katelyn Kesheimer
“I think it’s going to be a struggle all season long because there’s so many different plantings going in. We’re still seeing hemp go in the ground,” Kesheimer said. “The field I was in (Wednesday) had pretty extensive damage. They seem to do their worst damage, like most insects, when the plants are really young and vulnerable. They’ll just tear through those stems, or the plants can’t establish a good root system.
“What I’m seeing now is they’ll kill a plant and just move to the next one pretty quickly. You can see this pattern as they move their mounds. They make these mounds around the base of the plant as they’re feeding.”
Weather Affects Hemp Plants
Hemp plants are especially vulnerable right now considering the unpredictable weather patterns the Southeast has experienced in the last couple of months.
“It got really warm pretty early and then we had that cool, wet May. Things slowed down a little bit and I also think stressed out the plants. I’m seeing that in a few different crops,” Kesheimer said. “That makes them more vulnerable to insect attack; you can’t really fight off feeding damage or even a pathogen if you’re stressed out from up-and-down weather, which the plants don’t really like.”
Kesheimer stresses that ant damage is not isolated to hemp plantings in Alabama.
“We see fire ant issues in hemp all the way far north as North Carolina. It’s very widespread. I’ve gotten calls from growers in Louisiana with caterpillars and ants,” Kesheimer said.
Ants really are destructive during periods of excess moisture. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, Georgia and Florida are drought free and only pockets of South Alabama and North Alabama are abnormally dry. The region has received its share of rainfall recently.
“I’m not complaining that we’re getting rain, but the ants really like it. After the rain, you’ll have these big mating swarms that fly around; the females will drop to the ground and lose their wings and attempt to start a new mound. They’re going to spread and go through fields with this weather we’re having. It’s not great,” Kesheimer said. “I’m recommending that people bait and treat individual mounds depending on their situation, how big their farm is. We need to do something. Otherwise, you’re going to lose a lot of yield.”
COLUMBIA – Seven agricultural innovators will receive money for their businesses from the South Carolina Department of Agriculture’s Agribusiness Center for Research and Entrepreneurship (ACRE).
Entrepreneurs pitched their businesses to a panel of judges who selected seven to share $125,000 in funding based on their business plans, presentations and demonstrated history of business success.
Hugh Weathers
Kara and Matthew Rutter of Project Victory Gardens in Aiken County will expand their agritherapy and agricultural education program for military veterans, including building a teaching kitchen.
Ben Crawford and Rebecca Goldberg of Woodland Valley Mushrooms in Aiken County plan to expand their Aiken-area gourmet mushroom operation.
The brother-sister team behind Twin Creeks Lavender in Anderson County will build a drying and production barn to ensure expanded crop production at their Williamston lavender farm.
York County’s Nance Farm Creamery, operated by a 12th generation farm family, was awarded funding to help market its dairy products locally.
Alicia Holbrook intends to expand remote educational offerings at her alpaca farm Carolina Pride Pastures in Newberry County.
Orangeburg County’s Lowcountry Creamery, a value-added dairy operation located in Bowman, was awarded funding to provide their milk and yogurt direct to consumers.
Kristen Beigay, of Pickens County, has a worm farm Earthen Organics and intends to purchase new equipment to expand her family’s organic worm castings business.
SCDA founded ACRE in 2018 to help identify and nurture new ideas and businesses in the Palmetto State’s agribusiness sector. In addition to the Advanced Entrepreneurship track whose 2020 awardees are announced here, ACRE offers a curriculum program each fall to train and mentor beginning agricultural entrepreneurs.
“The future of South Carolina agriculture depends on innovation – we must grow and develop to survive,” said Commissioner of Agriculture Hugh Weathers. “I hope these seven entrepreneurs inspire continued development and innovation across South Carolina agribusiness.”
