(This is a copy of this week’s specialty crop grower email… shoot Maryellen an email if you want to get on the mailing list or have access to any of the shared articles: ms3573@cornell.edu!)
Hi all,
There’s not much new pest news in our region (fortunately!) other than issues caused by the continued damp weather. So far, we seem to be lucking out with the tomato late blight spread staying local in WNY (knock on wood). Powdery and downy mildew on cucurbits also appear to be politely keeping their spread down, which hopefully is helpful for winter squash and pumpkin growers out there. We’ve been having some cool nights and hearing reports of slower ripening across the board from that, but it still seems that stands are loaded with tomatoes, corn, and zucchini.
We have seen Allium Leaf Miner (aka ALM) in garlic and leeks locally *last* week. ALM affects all plants in the allium family—garlic, leeks, scallions, onions, chives, and shallots. The first flight is in spring, and the second flight theoretically starts at the end of the month but appears to be getting going now in a few isolated locations.
ALM’s favorite fall food are leeks—if your crop is infested, when you clean off that outer leaf, you can often see the pupa on the shaft as they are a dark, coppery color that really stands out against the white.
There’s some basics on these annoying guys here: https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/blogs.cornell.edu/dist/c/10116/files/NYSDAM-ALM-Fact-Sheet_CT.pdf.
Timing is key if you are going to spray as the control window is only a few weeks. ENYCHP’s Ethan Grundberg has a new article “Preparing for the Flight of Allium Leafminer” for 2023 included below with cultural, convention, and organic control options. (Previous version of this article here: https://rvpadmin.cce.cornell.edu/uploads/doc_990.pdf.)
If you are wondering if you have ALM going on, please email me pictures and I can help identify them.
For additional reading these next weeks (you can email ms3573@cornell.edu for them!), I wanted to share:
- Tomato Disease Parties: A Terrible Time, Elizabeth Buck—now’s the time of the year that foliar tomato diseases show up—this article is helpful with identifying what is going on via foliage
- Blueberry Mulching and Water Management, Anya Osatuke
- And finally, there’s a new disease moving into the state that extension folks were hoping growers could start monitoring for and here’s how to identify it: Keep Watch for Tar Spot in Sweet Corn, Sarah J. Pethybridge, Cornell AgriTech, Geneva, NY; Julie Kikkert, CCE Cornell Vegetable Program, Canandaigua, NY, and Darcy Telenko, Purdue University, Lafayette, IN
I hope that you all are having a good end of summer. Thanks for all your hard work, please reach out if we can help with anything, and happy farming, Maryellen