Horticulture
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The Georgia pecan harvest is well underway and many growers are not pleased with what they’re finding. Overall the state crop is off by about 1/3 of what was expected according to many growers. The region in extreme southern Georgia and east Georgia through which Hurricane Idalia passed is suffering from a further, storm-reduced crop…
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From the information we’ve been able to gather so far, the worst damage to pecans from Idalia seems to be from the SW corner of Georgia around Bainbridge along the state line, through Thomas and Brooks counties into Valdosta, then up through Berrien/Cook/Irwin and from there over to Ware and Pierce Counties. Going North of…
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Stuarts in East Georgia have been shedding leaves for a few weeks. Initially, the reports of this were of healthy, green compound leaves. We sometimes see healthy, green leaves drop like this when the weather turns hot and dry but this was occurring back when we were still seeing cool temperatures and it seemed to…
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For the last 5 years, we have been conducting a study on the performance of three low-input pecan cultivars—Lakota, Excel, and McMillan—at the UGA Ponder Farm near Tifton. As we have managed this particular orchard, low input in this case, refers to the absence of fungicide applications. The trees received all other normal inputs with…
Posted in: Horticulture -
Unfortunately, budbreak is arriving much, much earlier than normal. I took the following photos in an Elliot orchard today. Elliot is one of the earliest cultivars to break bud and these were just appearing on some of the suckers growing out from the trunk but its an indication that spring is here. I didnt see…
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As Andrew mentioned in the last blog post, Dr. Barman has been seeing consistent flights of ambrosia beetle for several weeks now. We are starting to get calls about hits on new plantings. Budbreak is looking to be early this year. Reports of early budbreak of many plants throughout the Southeastern U.S. by those who…
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We have been busy over the last week hedge pruning our orchards and research plots at the UGA Ponder Farm near Tifton. Hedge pruning generates a lot of limbs that must be disposed of. This practice is often time consuming and the limbs are piled and burned. There may be a better way to dispose…
Posted in: Horticulture