Blueberry
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These mummy berry leaf strikes were found last Friday, March 20th in Appling County. The photos aren’t great because it was getting dark when I took the picture. I’ve found strikes in three locations and I suspect there are more occurring throughout the region. All open blooms are subject to infection by conidial spores. We…
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Dr. Harald Scherm has determined the mummy berry potential for germination and development of the apothecia is here. Germination is likely to have started and apothecia are likely to be produced in the field. It doesn’t necessarily say that spores are already being dispersed, but the potential is definitely there. All southern Georgia blueberries that…
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Where freeze damage has occurred on southern highbush, an immediate application of Pristine (unless resistance is confirmed in the field. More info below on that.) at the high rate is recommended. There’s a lot of damaged plants from freeze protection and/or the weather itself. Where cold-damaged blooms/shoots are observed, Botrytis will be a real issue. The…
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On February 12 blueberries looked like this: On February 13 blueberries looked like this: And the below pictures were taken on February 23. You can easily see the freeze damage in the blueberries even though this field was freeze protected. Why are we seeing damage if the plants were protected? In using overhead…
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How much acid can be used to clean out drip lines in blueberries? A link is provided at the bottom for a calculator to assist you. I asked Dr. Erik Smith this question and here is his response: “I used 100 meq/L for the alkalinity and the initial pH of 7.0. The final pH is the…
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The below information is from Dr. Phil Brannen: “I had a question concerning whether fungicide application(s) would be warranted ahead of or following potential cold damage over the next few days, especially cold damage to southern highbush. While cold damage can increase both Botrytis and Botryosphaeria infection and subsequent disease issues, it is hard to…
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I attended a blueberry training earlier this week in Gainseville, FL. We stopped at Island Grove nursery and toured their farm. In the below picture are 2 year old Meadowlark blueberries. In order to get fertilizer through the plastic mulch they cut slits in the plastic and use special equipment to blow fertilizer through each…
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Blueberry rust is starting to show up, it is likely to increase over the next month or so. This is relatively early. Growers need to be scouting for rust in susceptible varieties. Susceptible Highbush Varieties: Jewel Rebel Farthing Primadonna (under high pressure) Emerald (under high pressure) Fungicides for rust control are Pristine, Quash, Indar and…
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From Phil Brannen: Based on the best information we can derive from the literature at large, cold-damaged, exposed tissue (leaf and early bloom development) is more susceptible to mummy berry blighting, such as we observed in 2013 in many locations (90% losses in some cases). The blighting aspect of the disease basically wipes out whole…
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Calibrating airblast sprayers is something that’s often not done, or done improperly. Why is this important? Most pecan growers assume the sprayer is calibrated at 100 gallons per acre (GPA). Consider if it’s actually 81.4 GPA (as in the below example). The sprayer is filled to 1,000 gallons and enough chemical is added to the…