(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 folks,
Happy August! I hope that your farms and fields are doing well.
Just wanted to send a few quick notes this week. First, we are in planning for fall and winter events—please shoot me any suggestions you have. I’m hoping to get a DEC credit heavy specialty crop shop talk together for early December in the northern part of the county.
Next week (Monday 8/7 from 4:30 to 6:30), we have a field walk in Kirkville at Salt City Harvest Farm with Crystal Stewart-Courtens of the ENY Commercial Horticulture Program. She’s wrapping up a field trial of using silage tarps on produce farms (and seeing how that practice affects nutrient management). For folks new to this concept, there’s some background here: https://smallfarms.cornell.edu/projects/reduced-tillage/tarping/
If you grow on dozens of acres or more, this is likely not the strategy for you. But for folks with smaller acreage or market gardens, it might be something you want to consider. Speaking personally, managing an acre under silage tarps is a pain (especially in windy years!), but once you get your timing and system down, for about every hour of tarp management headache, you get a 40 x 100 spread of perfect, weed free planting ground. If you are interested, we’d love to see you Monday (and there’s ice cream)!
In crop news, there was a confirmed serious outbreak of widespread late blight in tomatoes this week in Yates County. It likely blew in from Canada—so keep a heads up on your field tomatoes. https://www.vegetables.cornell.edu/crops/tomatoes/late-blight/ has some general pictures and info. Now is the time to really start scouting your tomatoes and begin/keep applying any preventative sprays. Please let me know if you see any suspicious or infected plants.
Downy mildew continues on cucumbers in NY. It’s not yet been reported on other related crops, but if you produce pumpkins or squash for the fall market, now is the time to stay on top of your preventative actions in those fields as well!
In articles this week (you can email ms3573@cornell.edu for them!) we have:
- Garlic growers who might have started seeing mite-related storage issues, ENYCHP has some preliminary results on Garlic Eriophyid Mite Controls in storage. (If you need to use a microscope to identify these tiny guys, we do have one at the Ag Business Center in Morrisville.)
- Western Bean Cutworm Monitoring—now is the time to be scouting for this newish-to-NY corn (both field and sweet) and bean pest. I also want to add a huge thank you to Critz Farms for buying and installing the first NEWA station in Madison County this summer, which supports forecasting for this pest’s flight at https://newa.cornell.edu/western-bean-cutworm.
- Powdery Mildew Control Recommendations for 2023 for pumpkins, winter squash, and fall ornamentals from ENYCHP.
Thank you all for all your work (and an extra shout out of thanks to those participating in Open Farm Day last weekend!). I hope this start of August finds you and your farms/fields well.
Happy Growing, Maryellen