Rutgers Cooperative Extension
Seasonal updates and alerts on insects, diseases, and weeds impacting vegetable crops. New Jersey Commercial Vegetable Production Recommendations updates between annual publication issues are included.
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Weeds make asparagus harvest more difficult.
Maintaining an asparagus field weed free during the two month harvest season requires a planned herbicide application prior to spear emergence.
Choose a postemergence herbicide or tillage to control emerged weeds, and residual herbicides to control annual grasses, and annual broadleaf weeds during harvest. [Read more…]
Weed Control in matted row strawberries relies heavily on controlling weeds with preemergence herbicides and postemergence herbicides. Weeds are effectively controlled before they germinate or as small seedling growing vegetatively (before flowering). Late winter or early spring after the soil has thawed and winter annual broadleaf weeds have broken dormancy, but before strawberries begin to grow, is a key time for herbicide application. [Read more…]
Pathogens such as Fusarium, Pythium, Phytophthora, Thielaviopsis and Rhizoctonia that cause pre- and post-emergent damping-off can cause serious problems in organic (and conventional) transplant production.
The key to controlling and/or suppressing damping-off pathogens with biological controls is keeping the biological populations high and continually present on root surfaces of the host, and by following good cultural practices. [Read more…]
Spring seeded spinach weed control recommendations are limited to Ro-Neet (if available) and Dual Magnum.
[Read more…]
Overwintered spinach weed control requires the control of several troublesome winter annual weeds, including chickweed species, mustard species, henbit, and annual bluegrass.
Common Chickweed in Overwintered Spinach
The only postemergence broadleaf herbicide currently recommended and available for use in spinach is Spin-Aid. The rate range for Spin-Aid is 3 to 6 pints per acre, for the control of seedling annual broadleaf weeds.
[Read more…]
Last summer a pepper differential trial was done near Vineland, NJ to help determine if new races of bacterial leaf spot (BLS) were present in the area. At least 11 races of BLS have been identified to date.
…look at ways to detect the presence of BLS susceptibility on your farm. Run your own internal “tests”: plant a few cultivars with known BLS resistance and take note which ones develop symptoms. Be ready to adopt cultivars with a larger BLS resistance package.
