Usually by now we are spraying for thrips in peanuts and cotton.  Well, I think that the thrips have drowned!  The abundance of recent rain will likely impact diseases and other problems that we see in our crops for the next few weeks.

Just in case you do not subscribe to the UGA Pecan Blog I wanted to share this post with you.  Managing Scab Pressure.  With all the rain and the growth of this year’s crop we need to be on top of our spray program.

Seedling diseases like rhizoctonia have already been showing up in fields due to poor growing conditions.  Usually the base seed treatments are enough to control rhizoctonia, according to Bob Kemerait (UGA Plant Pathologist), but this year seed treatments plus in furrow fungicides were the only way to minimize damage in many fields.

In peanut fields planted ahead of this rain you may be seeing damage of a different kind.  If you applied flumioxazin (Valor) after planting you may be seeing some pretty serious damage from the herbicide.  It may look bad but as long as you still have green tissue the plants should recover.

Finally, our fruit crops are also suffering from wet weather and lack of sunlight.  Brown rot in peach is showing up since all of the rain began and bacterial spot has also flared up again now that there is moisture on the leaves and fruit.  Fire blight has been severe across the landscape and is still causing problems on commercial apples and home garden pears.  This cool wet weather has really favored spread of the disease.  Strawberries have taken a beating as they just don’t like the rain.  If it is not grey mold (botrytis) or anthracnose then they just suffer a natural breakdown if not allowed some drying time.  this not only makes the fruit unmarketable but also increases the incidence of secondary pests like sap beetles.

Once again it seems that the weather is the biggest factor affecting farming in the southeast.  However, you won’t ever hear me complain about the rain.  Unless I am at the beach

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