Date: Thursday January 7, 2016, 2pm
Location: Salem County Extension Office
51 Cheney Road
Woodstown, NJ 08098We will review the effect of Dickeya (blackleg pathogen) on the 2015 white potato crop for better decisions regarding your 2016 potato seed orders. Presenter Dr. Steven Johnson, Extension Plant Pathologist at UMaine, has over 20 years of experience with potato diseases.
Commercial Ag Updates + Farm Food Safety
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Dickeya (blackleg) White Potato Meeting Jan 7, 2016
Hobby UAS (Drones) – New FAA Registration Requirements
FSMA Produce Safety Rule Now Final
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety rule is now final, and the earliest compliance dates for some farms begin one year after the effective date of the final rule (see “Compliance Dates” below). The rule establishes, for the first time, science-based minimum standards for the safe growing, harvesting, packing, and holding of fruits and vegetables grown for human consumption. The FDA has created a factsheet highlighting the produce safety rule.
This rule was first proposed in January 2013. In response to input received during the comment period and during numerous public engagements that included public meetings, webinars, listening sessions, and visits to farms across the country, the FDA issued a supplemental notice of proposed rulemaking in September 2014. The proposed revisions were designed to make the originally proposed rule more practical, flexible, and effective.
The final rule is a combination of the original proposal and revisions outlined in the supplemental proposal, with additional changes as appropriate. The definition of “farm” and related terms were revised in the final Preventive Controls for Human Food rule, and the same definitions of those terms are used in this rule to establish produce safety standards. Operations whose only activities are within the farm definition are not required to register with FDA as food facilities and thus are not subject to the preventive controls regulations.
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Update on Ag Worker Protection Standard
A pre-publication version of the Ag Worker Protection Standard Revisions has been posted on the EPA’s website. In addition, a document comparing new protections to existing protections is available. Per Nancy Fitz, US EPA – Office of Pesticide Programs, compliance with most of the new standards will be required in mid-December 2016. Thanks to Pat Hastings, Rutgers NJAES Pesticide Safety Education Program Coordinator, for the heads-up.
Agricultural Worker Protection Standard Revisions (314pp, 880K)
Conditions Result in Grasshopper Population Explosion
This summer we’ve had a number of grasshopper infestations in the areas of Tuckahoe and Goshen, Cape May County. Commercial growers have called to report swarms of grasshoppers in their nurseries and hay fields. On farm visits, I’ve seen them covering telephone poles, farm equipment, and all kinds of vegetation. This is an unusual and devastating event for the plants they come into contact with since they essentially chew the plants down to the ground before moving on to fresh foliage en masse.
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Vegetable Twilight Meeting & Research Tour
Date: Thursday, August 20, 2015, 5:30 p.m.
Location: Meet at the trailer near parking lot
Rutgers Agricultural Research & Extension Center
121 Northville Road, Bridgeton, NJ (Upper Deerfield)
Agenda
- 5:30: Taste the new tomato breeding lines that will be released soon and tour the tomato plots
Tom Orton, PhD, Specialist in Vegetables
Check out a mobile market/portable cooler trailer with CoolBot™’s alternative to high cost refrigeration units
Rick VanVranken, Agricultural Agent Atlantic County - 6:00: *Summer/Winter Squash and Cucumber fungicide evaluations for Downy and Powdery Mildew Control
C. Andrew Wyenandt, PhD, Specialist in Vegetable Pathology - 6:30: Advances in breeding lines and fungicide evaluation for basil Downy Mildew Control
Rob Pyne, Graduate Student, Rutgers and C. Andrew Wyenandt, PhD - 7:00: Fungicides for controlling Phytophthora Blight control in cucurbits
C. Andrew Wyenandt, PhD - 7:30: Evaluation of Bell Peppers cultivars and breeding lines for Phytophthora tolerance
C. Andrew Wyenandt, PhD - 8:00: *Slicing and pickling cucumber variety evaluation for yield and Downy Mildew tolerance
Wes Kline, PhD, Agricultural Agent - 8:30: Phomopsis Blight control in eggplant
C. Andrew Wyenandt, PhD
*The cucurbit studies are funded in part through the Charles E. and Lena Maier Fund, the Vegetable Growers Association of New Jersey and the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station