(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!)

 

I hope that folks did okay this past week between the smoke and dry weather—hopefully there will be some appreciable rain to take the edge off this week!

We’ve had a few questions about the smoke’s impact on plants. In a call that included a few educators who previously worked on the west coast, they said that while a long spell of smoke might affect how the foliage looks on the plants, in their experience, it didn’t affect plant growth or yield too greatly. (For wine grapes and hops, there could be aroma changes if you get a ton of smoke at fruit/cone set, but this doesn’t apply to us so early in the season!)

However, given that many field plantings started this week with high levels of stress from a water deficit, you may start seeing some indicators of stress/environmental damage from excess heat, cold, and/or drought (we’ve really had it all this spring!).

Prior to the smoke arriving, we also had two days with higher ozone levels near the ground in CNY. I didn’t see any ozone damage signs in fields personally this week, but if you have never observed its damage, it can be a bit disconcerting the first time you see it. Ozone’s impact on vegetables typically looks like bronzing or stippling on the foliage. When I farmed in a higher ozone region, it mostly looked like someone spray painted a mist of golden brown over the crops. At the levels we had last week, it’s unlikely to see much or any damage (and if you do, it would likely be towards the top of the canopy of the more susceptible crops like green beans and some cucurbits). Pictures of what this sort of damage might look like includes:

• https://blogs.cornell.edu/livegpath/gallery/cucurbits/ozone-injury-in-cucurbit-crops/
• https://extension.umd.edu/resource/ozone-damage-cucurbit-and-tomato-plants
• https://vegcropshotline.org/article/ozone-injury-on-vegetable-plants/

Again, I haven’t seen any such damage or heard local reports (please let me know if you catch some), but it might be something to keep an eye out for if ozone levels get high again. If you were to see any impact from the wildfire smoke, it may also look like ozone damage.

Fingers crossed that this week ahead is more moderate and takes off some of those environmental stressors off the plants!

Reports across the northeast and some local farms are showing some high numbers of some early summer pests creeping our way—leaf miners are high in spinach, chard, and beets, onion thrips and potato leafhoppers are starting to show up east of us, and diamondback moths are active in WNY. Locally, we’ve had a few spots with extensive wireworm damage and high aphid populations. Dry local conditions are starting to create some areas of high plant stress, especially where transplanted vegetables had to go out in last week’s heat and may have gotten scorched a bit.

Two additional articles are included below (email ms3573@cornell.edu for them!). The first is around anthracnose in strawberries by Laura McDermott of CCE’s ENYCH program (they also have weekly scouting reports at their blog here—since the east trends a few days ahead of us, it can help you get ready for the arrive of new pests).

The second is for folks who are using herbicides and how our dry conditions may make effective application challenging, by Lynn Sosnoski, who works in weed science at Cornell Agri-Tech. (For those of you who don’t use herbicides, hopefully this dry weather is helpful at least on the weed front!) Find this article here: https://cals.cornell.edu/weed-science/herbicides/effects-dry-conditions-weed-management

Please feel free to reach out anytime with questions, or if you want a farm visit. I’d also love to hear if there are pests or problems that you are concerned about!

Happy growing, Maryellen