Month: April 2016

Wine Grape IPM Assessment -volunteers needed

Greetings.

The UVM Grape Program is seeking THREE volunteer vineyard managers to participate in an Integrated Pest Management Assessment. Selected participants will receive personalized, one-on-one consultations to address their pest management needs. We will only be selecting three participants from interested respondents for this round of the program. This is a great opportunity to review your pest management practices and discover areas to improve IPM on your farm.

How this works:

1. You will complete a short online survey of yes/no questions based on an NRCS and UMASS instrument about your pest management practices.

2. Answers will be collected by the UVM Apple Program.

3. Specific practices will be assigned points based on their importance to an IPM system.

4. Total points scored will be used to determine your current IPM needs.

5. UVM Grape Program staff follow up with a consultation to assist with IPM implementation on your farm.

6. An follow-up assessment will be conducted after harvest to assess impacts of IPM educational efforts.

The assessment includes a series of research-based best management practices encompassing soil and nutrient management; cultural practices; pesticide application techniques, record-keeping, tactics for insect, disease, and weed management; and grower education.

By participating in this assessment, you will also be helping the UVM Grape Program to evaluate the usefulness of this tool for future IPM education and outreach efforts.

–> If interested, please contact Sarah Kingsley-Richards by May 6 at sarah.kingsley@uvm.edu.

Apple IPM Assessment -volunteers needed

Greetings.

The UVM Apple Program is seeking THREE volunteer orchard managers to participate in an Integrated Pest Management Assessment. Selected participants will receive personalized, one-on-one consultations to address their pest management needs. We will only be selecting three participants from interested respondents for this round of the program. This is a great opportunity to review your pest management practices and discover areas to improve IPM on your farm.

How this works:

1. You will complete a short online survey of yes/no questions based on an NRCS and UMASS instrument about your pest management practices.

2. Answers will be collected by the UVM Apple Program.

3. Specific practices will be assigned points based on their importance to an IPM system.

4. Total points scored will be used to determine your current IPM needs.

5. UVM Apple Program staff follow up with a consultation to assist with IPM implementation on your farm.

6. An follow-up assessment will be conducted after harvest to assess impacts of IPM educational efforts.

The assessment includes a series of research-based best management practices encompassing soil and nutrient management; cultural practices; pesticide application techniques, record-keeping, tactics for insect, disease, and weed management; and grower education.

By participating in this assessment, you will also be helping the UVM Apple Program to evaluate the usefulness of this tool for future IPM education and outreach efforts.

–> If interested, please contact Sarah Kingsley-Richards by May 6 at sarah.kingsley@uvm.edu.

Apple scab infection period expected for Monday May 2.

By Terence Bradshaw

Even with the best expert systems, on-farm weather stations, and predictive forecasts, sometimes we have to rely on common sense when making management decisions in the orchard. The forecast for most of Vermont is for rain showers to begin Sunday, with higher likelihood in southern Vermont. By Monday, we’re looking at 50-60% chances. With average temperatures around 50°F, we only need 11 hours leaf wetness to cause an infection, and at 57° that lowers to seven hours. Primary ascospore maturity is estimated at around 25% by Sunday, which presents a very good load of inoculum for infection.

However, NEWA is not predicting an infection period for this weather event. (You’ll notice an April 1 date entered for green tip, I did this to be conservative in estimating ascospore maturity development to reflect the weather in early April conducive to spore maturation which has a base temperature of 32°F vs 43° or so for tree bud stage development).

On the other hand, I am running a trial of another proprietary modelling system from Europe, RIMpro, which uses a different forecast model and predicts a pretty significant infection event:

I am only running this at two sites in the state and don’t have the ability to make it ‘live’, so I’m using it as supplemental to NEWA for now. The graph has a lot of information: rain and leaf wetness at the bottom in blue, and various stages of spore release, germination, and development in the curves above the maturation chart. The red “infection value” line represents the overall risk for infection, and anything over 300 is considered a severe infection risk in unprotected orchards. The white portion of the curve represents germinating spores that may be susceptible to contact fungicides, the orange curve represents spores that have developed primary stroma into leaf tissue and the beginning of ‘infection’.

Since we’re pretty early in our use and interpretation of this system, and it is all based on predictive weather data ay our specific site in South Burlington anyway, please don’t take the model as indicative of actual orchard conditions yet. That said, there appears to be good likelihood of a potentially severe infection period starting Monday. In general, calm winds are expected over the weekend so there should be ample time to get a protective spray on. However, overnight and early morning temperatures are expected to be below freezing, so follow the usual precautions: no oil application, avoid captan as well if possible, and protect pumps, booms, and lines from freezing.

False alarm on apple scab, dry weather expected

By Terence Bradshaw

Despite my warning from Sunday about an impending apple scab infection period early this week, the cool/cold temperatures and short wetting event associated with yesterday’s snowfall (!) did not trigger infection in any Vermont orchards. At this point, most orchards have not experienced an infection period yet this spring. Dry weather is expected through the weekend, so sprayers can be put away for the time being and attention turned to planting trees and watering. Soil conditions are dry across the state, and developing fruit buds will tax moisture resources in some orchards. Newly planted trees especially should receive water, as well as high density plantings. Next week looks showery, so plan on protecting against the next infection periods prior to the arrival of the wet weather.

Updates to NEWA functions

By Terence Bradshaw

Art Agnello from Cornell posted the following announcement of NEWA system updates in his latest Scaffolds newsletter:

Many orchards will soon be progressing to the stage where some insecticidal protection is typically needed, so we would take this opportunity to point out the availability of a prediction tool that combines our historical records with the best biological projections we can offer, found on the NEWA Apple Insect Models website. (The site also has pest models for Grapes)

We recently completed some further improvements to this web-based, "Real-Time" Apple IPM

Decision Support System, which can deliver relevant, current information on weather data and pest populations to facilitate grower pest management decisions throughout the growing season. This system tracks seasonal development of fruit bud stage, key insect pests, and diseases using Degree Day and Infection Risk models. The models indicate pest status, pest management advice and sampling options, and are linked to an interactive system that helps growers choose appropriate materials when pesticide use is recommended. Insect pest developmental stages are calculated from Degree Day (DD) accumulations at IPM’s NEWA and National Weather Service airport weather stations throughout NY, MA, VT, NJ, CT, RI, PA, and DE. The insect pests addressed by this website are: apple maggot, oriental fruit moth, codling moth, plum curculio, obliquebanded leafroller, spotted tentiform leafminer, and (NOW also) San Jose scale. Disease predictions are available for apple scab and fire blight, and summer diseases (sooty blotch and flyspeck).

Access to the Apple Insects (and Diseases) models is through the "Pest Forecasts" list or the "Apples" link on the NEWA homepage (http:// clicking on the link that says "Apple Insect Phenology Models and IPM Forecasts" brings up a state map showing the available weather stations, plus pull-down menus on one side. The user selects a pest of interest, state, weather station, and the desired end date for weather data accumulation, and pest DD models and historical records are used to calculate: Tree Phenological Stage, Pest Stage(s), Pest Status, and Pest Management Information, all of which appears on a "Results" page. We have just finished updating the decision points for these advice categories by incorporating the most current 5 years’ worth of temperature/degree day trends, which should result in more precise predictions.

Additionally, the current DD accumulations provided on this page have now been linked to the newly reactivated NEWA Degree Day Calculator so the results are given in the same format used by that tool: a table of the current accumulated heat units, plus the projected values according to NWS 5-day forecast data. A link gives the option of additionally viewing DD progress in graphic form. The phenological stage can be adjusted according to field observations by selecting from a pull-down menu; this will generally change some of text provided in the advice boxes. Links on this page can take the user to various other online resources, such as color photos of the bud development stages, NYS IPM Fact Sheets of the pests in question, and when appropriate, sampling charts for use in conducting field samples of specific pest life stages (e.g., eggs, larvae, mines). When a pesticide spray is recommended, a "Pesticide Information" link in the "Pest Management" box takes the user to the Pest Management Education Program’s (PMEP) Tree Fruit IPM home page, where a pesticide decision filter helps users pick an appropriate material to use, based on anticipated pest severity and program type. A pesticide search returns a series of profiles of all the NY-registered products fitting the specified pest species and efficacy rating. The profile gives the common and trade names, labeled use rate, re-entry and pre-harvest intervals, and EPA registration number of each product. Also included are some general remarks on the range of product efficacy, and any known effects on beneficial species. A "Details" link in each profile box takes the user to a more extensive list of information, including notes on the active ingredient (including its mode of action classification), and an overview of recommended use periods. Predictions provided by the website can be refined and adjusted to reflect current insect activity by user-entered events obtained through field monitoring (such as pest biofix; i.e., the first sustained flight of a pest species). The pesticide selection filter uses Cornell University product efficacy ratings and the type of management program selected by the user (i.e., conventional reduced-risk, non-organophosphate, organic).

This website uses DD information based on either historical records or user-entered biofix data, and includes: the start, peak, or progress of the oviposition/egg hatch/crawler emergence period (for CM, OBLR, OFM, STLM and SJS); the start, peak or end of the pest’s 1st, 2nd, etc., flight (for AM, CM, OBLR, OFM, STLM, and SJS); the first occurrence of adult or larval feeding, foliar or fruit damage, or mines (for OBLR and STLM). An improvement to the site we still plan to implement, in collaboration with a colleague at Penn State, is the incorporation of a least-cost product calculator function, to provide users with an estimate of how much they’ll have to pay for a given pesticide choice.

We are continuing our efforts to refine and improve the accuracy of the website’s pest predictions, and expand the range of sites from which weather data is able to be collected. During this process, we encourage everyone in the apple industry to check this website for themselves throughout the growing season, to see how well it forecasts pest events in specific areas of the state. We appreciate hearing of any anomalies or irregular predictions generated by using the local data to chart pest or disease development in your growing area, and hope to end up with a pest management tool that is useful and accurate for advising apple growers about what’s going on in their orchards in Real Time.

Efficient Vineyard webinar Thursday April 28 “FREE” Registration Required

Please join us for an Efficient Vineyards Webinar on Thursday, April 28, 2016 at 11:00 AM EST

Join extension staff and researchers from Cornell University, Carnegie Mellon and University of California Davis for;

“Setting the Stage – Developing Outreach and Adoption strategies”

This webinar is the first in a series of Showcase webinars for the NIFA SCRI project “Precision Vineyard Management: Collecting and Interpreting Spatial Data for Variable Vineyard Management to Improve Production Efficiency and Product Quality”.

Webinar is free but preregistration is required by emailing Kim at ksk76

One of the goals of this project is to determine both the preferred learning styles of growers (how do you want the information delivered) as well as the current knowledge base of growers across the country of the technology involved in the project.

Whether you are able to join us for the Webinar or not, please follow the link below and spend 5 – 10 minutes answering our survey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/EfficientVineyard

Tim Weigle

Senior Extension Associate
Statewide Grape IPM
NYS IPM Program
Cornell Cooperative Extension
Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

Team Leader – Lake Erie Regional Grape Program
6592 West Main Road
Portland, NY 14769

Voice: (716) 792-2800 Ext 203
FAX: (716) 792-2805
E-mail: thw4@cornell.edu

NYS IPM Program Home Page http://nysipm.cornell.edu
Lake Erie Regional Grape Program Home Page http://lergp.cce.cornell.edu

Production Guide for Organic Grapes http://nysipm.cornell.edu/organic_guide/grapes.pdf

Cornell Cooperative Extension provides equal program and employment opportunity.

Foliar Nutrient guide – tree fruit

By Terence Bradshaw

Forwarding from University of Connecticut Fruit Extension Educator Mary Concklin:

Attached is a guide for foliar nutrient applications based on an identified need as well as foliar nutrients and PGR for situations where buds have been damaged from frost and/or freeze situations such as we have had this spring.

Tree Fruit Foliar Nutrient Applications and Nutrients & PGRs for Frost-Freeze Situations.pdf

Apple Scab infection period expected Monday night through Tuesday, April 25-26

By Terence Bradshaw

Apple scab primary ascospore development is moving along in Vermont orchards, with most orchards having approximately 8-15% mature spores according to NEWA models. This will likely be our first significant infection period of the 2016 season, and growers should be prepared. Bud stages are all over the map right now depending on location, from earliest green tip in the colder uplands to late half-inch green tip / early tight cluster in the warmest valleys. Winds look a bit on the high side today but drop down to reasonable levels for spraying by late afternoon/this evening and through tomorrow, so this looks like the best window to apply protective materials.

Green tip in Vermont orchards and disease management

By Terence Bradshaw

April 15, 2016

By later today most orchards in the Champlain and Connecticut valleys and Bennington area should be into green tip and disease management activities will need to commence soon for the 2016 season. The weather forecast for rain on Monday has been somewhat inconsistent with chances decreasing since last night, but growers should be ready for when any rains do come. That said, aside from the 30-40% chance called for on Monday, next week looks relatively dry. Depending on when we assume mature scab ascospores to be present in the orchard, we may have 2-6% ascospore maturity by Tuesday in most orchards. That may not seem like much, but many orchards had significant scab last year and 2% of a lot is still quite a spore load.

The threat of freezing weather is diminishing with forecast lows above freezing in the major fruit growing regions of the state after tonight. This means that both copper and oil should be okay to apply starting tomorrow through next week. I have seen and heard of increasing problems with San Jose scale in Vermont orchards, and a thorough oil application is the first line of defense against those insects as well as overwintering mites. Horticultural oil should be applied at 2% volume and in as much water as practical, certainly no less than 100 gallons per acre and more if you can on larger trees. This means slower travel and more refilling of the tank, so plan accordingly. Copper is the first line of defense against fire blight and while that disease was not present at high levels in Vermont orchards last year (in general…), it is out there and has become an increasing problem in the state in the past decade. A copper spray will also provide about seven days’ protection against apple scab and can be combined with oil. Fixed copper materials are best at this time, and specific materials and rates can be found in the 2015 New England Tree Fruit Management Guide. Care however must be taken with copper application, as the danger of phytotoxicity increases after green tip and especially by half-inch green tip. My suggestion is to get out there as soon as possible starting tomorrow and cover the whole orchard with a copper-oil mix before buds advance too far. When using oil, it is important to not use Captan for 7-10 days to avoid phytoxicity.

For orchards that have green tissue and were not covered with a fungicide, if an infection period occurs on Monday-Tuesday April 18-19, a kick-back fungicide may be called for to prevent infection because copper has no post-infection activity. The anilinopyrimidine (AP) fungicides Vangard and Scala have decent (48-72 hour) post-infection activity, work well in cooler weather, and are poor on fruit scab and are therefore good choices to use early in the season. Like all post-infection materials, there is potential for resistance development to the fungicide in local scab populations so a tank mix with a contact fungicide is recommended. I do not know of issues with copper and AP compatibility although there are no warnings on the label. If not using copper at this time, then mancozebs are another good material that will provide some protection against the disease (but have no kick-back activity of their own).

After this current round of treatment is completed, growers should begin their early season fungicide schedule going into the following week. Generally the mancozebs are the best candidates for maintaining protective coverage, although total use restriction must be followed (i.e. no more than four sprays through bloom at the six pound per acre rate of Manzate or equivalent or seven sprays up to the 77-day preharvest interval at the three pound per acre rate). After the seven-day ‘embargo’ following an oil application, Captan may also be used either alone or in combination with mancozeb (using a half-rate of each). If using Captan, recognize that there is a 40 pound per acre seasonal limit, so early season uses may limit its use later in the season for secondary scan and summer disease control.

Organic growers of course will be limited primarily to elemental fungicides including copper (apply that now, by the way) and sulfur materials. After the seven-day window that you buy with a copper spray, elemental sulfur applied at ten pounds per acre on a weekly basis or more often if more than one inch of rain falls is the primary line of defense against apple scab on susceptible cultivars. Growers do have the option of using liquid lime sulfur which has some post-infection activity but is very caustic, phytotoxic, and frankly nasty to apply, so good preventative coverage with elemental sulfur is important to manage the disease.

As always, apple scab and other pest management decisions should be made using best information on the conditions in your orchard. The apple scab primary ascospore infection season lasts roughly from green tip (judged by 50% of McIntosh buds having reached that stage) through 900 degree days base 32°F. Growers located near a NEWA station may use the models for the station closest to them, with the caveat that they may not be exact for their specific site. When using the scab model for a particular site, NEWA asks for a green tip date to be entered, and the default date is quite a bit ahead of what we are seeing in orchards. That said, entering an earlier date will allow you to be more conservative regarding ascospore development early in the season. For example, the default green tip date for Putney is March 30, which estimates 6% ascospore maturity by April 20, whereas entering a date of April 15 gives an estimated ascospore maturity of 2%. The only way to truly know the ascospore maturity level in orchards is to perform spore trapping or squash mounts using a microscope and very exacting and time-consuming technique, which is rarely done. The models are just that, computed estimates of biological activity in the orchard and only output what the model and entered conditions tell it to. That said, we know we are entering the scab season for this season, so growers should plan to apply coverage through the end of primary ascospore release. However, as we know that leaf wetness is required to initiate scab infection, extended dry periods will reduce the need for preventative coverage, but growers should be careful to not get caught entering a wet period without any coverage on trees.

New NEWA stations in Vermont! This spring we have brought one more NEWA station on-line in Bennington and have moved the Calais station from my house to a relatively new orchard in East Montpelier, which brings the total number of NEWA stations to ten, in addition to the airport sites located around the state. Remember that airport sites do not have leaf wetness sensors so apple scab and other disease models requiring that information cannot be run, but insect models will function fine.

Best wishes and good luck on the start of the season.

-TB

Pre-bud break grape management

By Terence Bradshaw

April 15, 2016

In these next few days and week(s) before buds start swelling on grapes in Vermont, there are a few activities that can be performed that may improve management in your vineyard for the 2016 growing season. First of course is wrapping up any pruning, including careful removal of any disease inoculum including diseased wood and mummy berries that may harbor black rot and phomopsis. Now is also a good time to consider a dormant lime sulfur spray to further reduce disease inoculum. Mark Longstroth from Michigan State University Extension outlined the principles of dormant lime sulfur application in vineyards in an April 16, 2011 posting:

“Lime sulfur is an effective dormant spray when applied early in the season as growth begins. When applied as a true dormant spray before growth begins, lime sulfur can be used with oil to increase the penetration of the caustic sulfur into the surface of the infected tissues. Once green tissue appears, [lime sulfur] should not be mixed with oil. Oil will carry sulfur into green plant tissue causing injury. It is generally recommended to not use oil within a week of a sulfur spray when green tissue is exposed. Lime sulfur rates should be reduced when green tissue is exposed. Recommended rates vary for different products with dormant rates in the 10 to 12 pounds per 100 gals of water to 5 or 6 pounds when green tissue is exposed. Lime sulfur (calcium polysulfide) is a caustic material and after application it breaks down, releasing sulfur. It is very effective against diseases that overwinter on the host. Lime sulfur is also effective against many insect pests that overwinter on the plant.”

Remember that lime sulfur is pretty ‘hot’ stuff and requires that applicators follow precautions to reduce contact with the material. Very good coverage is required for this material to work, and the target zone of the trunks and cordons small, so application with a handgun may be best. If using an airblast sprayer, consider shutting off the fan to reduce drift, although that will require application on a relatively windless day. Airblast or boom sprays are also difficult to target the trunks without substantial overspray to the open space between trunks.

Now is also a good time to consider chemical weed control applications if you will be using that method. I outlined the best practices in applying early spring herbicides in an April 24, 2014 post: “…It is important to avoid herbicide contact with green tissue. Grapes are especially sensitive to many herbicides, so early spring before bud break is a good window for application of materials if you will be using them in the vineyard. Young vines with thin bark on the lower trunk can also be damaged by herbicide contact, so shielded sprayers or waxed trunk guards should be used.

Specific herbicide materials and their use restrictions and guidelines ca be found in Chapter 6 of the New York and Pennsylvania Pest Management Guidelines for Grapes

In February 2013, a Northern Grapes Project Webinar on vineyard groundcover management was offered that can be viewed here:
http://youtu.be/pSNy08aEs4E
Also, slides from vineyard weed identification and management presentations made to growers at the Northwest Michigan Horticultural Research Center from April 17, 2014 are available here:
http://bit.ly/1kdeGWp

The window to best manage weeds with herbicide applications is short, so please consider getting out there in the next couple of weeks. Once weeds get established in the vineyard and vines start growing, under trellis groundcover management becomes very difficult without causing vine injury.

-Terry