Fruit IPM Report 6-9-2015

Peach

Clean Up Your Ground Cover – Plant Bugs and Native Stink Bugs: As we move into summer heat, catfacing insects become a primary target, especially in dry seasons.

Many orchards have ground covers composed of flowering weeds and clover, which makes an ideal habitat for catfacing insects. These insects breed and multiply in the ground cover, and then find their way to the fruit. Wet springs that help make a healthy ground cover (especially if it’s weeds), followed by prolonged dry periods can often aggravate catfacing damage, since the insects often move from the weedy ground covers to the fruit in the trees.

Damage may appear as water soaked areas, bleeding spots on the fruit, or depressed calloused tissue. Because there are pit injury and bacterial spot symptoms present in some orchards, be sure to distinguish between those symptoms and catfacing. Fresh catfacing injury will appear as single or multiple bleeding sites on the fruit surface. Cutting into the bleeding area will reveal a shallow injury. Injured pits will appear similar to catfacing injury, however if the fruit is cut the injured area will appear as a “water-soaked“ area extending through to the pit. Bacterial spot often begins with multiple bleeding spots that will eventually heal over leaving blackened spots on areas with broken skin. Orchard blocks that are next to grain fields or wooded edges can be particularly susceptible to stink bug damage.

Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB): Adults are occasionally seen during orchard scouting. Knock down materials will be required for the remainder of the season in orchards with BMSB populations.

Oriental Fruit Moth (OFM): We are between the 1st and second generation flights in all areas of the state. Second generation adults should start emerging in the near future and mate and lay eggs, which produce the second brood. This is often the brood that causes the most damage on peaches, since larvae can enter both growing tips and young fruit. Particular attention should be paid to non-bearing orchards that may not be receiving regular insecticide applications. OFM can build up in non-bearing blocks and create pressure for production blocks. Timing for second brood OFM applications:

 
Thrips: Looking ahead to early varieties and thrips – Unless Delegate is used for TABM or OFM control, susceptible early varieties like Easternglo, PF-5, and Sentry should be scheduled to receive a thrips treatment from 1 to 2 weeks preharvest. Delegate @ 6-7 oz/ac is effective for thrips. The PHI varies for different stone fruit crops, but is set at 1 day for peaches and nectarines. The addition of a non-ionic surfactant can help improve control. Lannate SP @ 1#/A (or LV @1.5-3 pt/A) may still be effective in some orchards. Prolonged periods of dry weather favor thrips buildup more than the current weather pattern, which at the moment is not favorable for thrips populations to build. However, thrips continue to be present in many peach blocks. This deserves extra vigilance when the fruit begins to ripen.

Brown Rot; Anthracnose: Thundershowers and overhead irrigation done around periods of warm temperatures and high humidity can provide good opportunities for brown rot infection, particularly in blocks with damaged fruit or blossom blight. An improved fungicide schedule should be initiated 2 to 3 weeks prior to the first picking.

Bacterial Spot: Leaf symptoms have been seen in only a few locations and only on highly susceptible varieties, however a few fruit lesions began to appear last week. Last week’s heavy rains may have initiated additional infections so look for symptoms to appear in about 2 weeks. Fruit remains highly susceptible until pit hardening so management practices should be continued.

San Jose Scale (SJS): Scale crawlers were first seen on 6/8 in southern counties. See the Tree Fruit Production Guide and last week’s newsletter for more information.

Tufted Apple Budmoth (TABM): Timings for TABM control are updated below.

 
Much of this first generation will overlap with codling moth in apple. Many of the same materials used for TABM control will also control codling moth. See apple section below.

Apple

Codling Moth (CM): Codling moth flights are between 1st and 2nd generations. There is no need to treat on most farms at this time. There are exceptions on some farms in northern counties that have traps captures in excess of over 5 moths per trap. Growers should apply a CM effective material in these cases. DO NOT USE the same products you have been using, especially if you have been using Ops or Carbamates. Switch to a more CM effective material like Delegate, Altacor or Belt.

 
Aphids: Spirea and Apple (green) Aphids: Populations are starting to build. Our treatment threshold is set at 50% of the terminals infested with healthy colonies. Predation by lady beetles or other predators is always a good sign when present. In most cases biological control is possible if 20% or more of the infested terminals have beneficial insects actively feeding. When terminals begin to stop growth and harden, aphid populations will diminish, usually about early to mid July.

Summer Diseases – Sooty Blotch and Fly Speck, White Rot and Black Rot, plus anthracnose, are critical diseases to control at this time. Topsin-M, Sovran, Pristine or Flint can be included for control. Good coverage is essential for control. Captan alone at a full rate, or at a half rate in combination with Ziram, Topsin, Sovran, or Flint is also very effective. Read the QoI labels carefully for resistance management. If any of the older QoI formulations (i.e. Pristine; Sovran; Flint) are used, no more than 4 applications of a single QoI or any combination of QoI may be used per season. The newer QoI’s (i.e. Luna Sensation; Merivon) do not have the same language, but if any of the older materials are used then they are subject to the same restrictions. Also Remember that Topsin-M is limited to 4#/ac total per season. Summer disease management needs to be planned carefully to meet these label restrictions.

Blueberry

Aphids: Despite the colder weather last week aphid counts increased with 90% of the sampled sites having aphids present and 56% of sites having over 10% of the shoots infested. The average percent of shoots with aphids was 18% per 50 shoot sample. If you didn’t already control aphids, then they are still your primary insect to control. Growers should consider treatment options such as: Assail, Actara, Admire Pro and Sivanto. Sivanto is not a neonicotinoid, and is a bee safe product. It acts systemically against the aphids with a mode of action similar to the neonicotinoids. Many growers have asked about Lannate against aphids- Lannate has moderate control against aphids, but IS NOT the material of choice when aphids are the primary insect target.

The general insecticide strategy should be to “0” out aphids as much as possible, so you can concentrate on SWD as they start to emerge.

Cranberry Fruitworm (CBFW): Trap counts have been minimal, but the timing has not changed. Even though we started with a late spring, temperatures have caught up. The extremely low trap counts were likely a product of a low overwintering population. Any post pollination insecticide already applied should have controlled CBFW.

Blueberry Maggot (BBM): Traps have been set for BBM and we have been monitoring for BBM over the past week. So far our trap counts for BBM are zero.

Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD): Some SWD traps were placed earlier in the week, and others continue to go up.

Oriental Beetle (OB): Our first OB were caught in traps in Atlantic County this week. The average number of OB per trap was 9.7. OB will continue to emerge over the next 4-6 weeks, and treatments should be applied where needed over the next 3-4 weeks if not already don so.

Plum Curculio (PC): No new PC damage was seen over the last week. We observed only minimal PC damage, and did not find any adult PC in the field. The average fruit damage in the field was 0.1% out of 1000 fruit sampled.

Leps. and other larvae: Similar to the previous week, the number of leafrollers and other leps. found in the field this week was minimal. Only 0.2% of the sites sampled had leafrollers and the average number of leafrollers observed was 0.3% out of a 50 shoot sample.

Tree Fruit Scouting Calendar Southern Counties

The following table is intended as an aid for orchard scouting. It should not be used to time pesticide applications. Median dates for pest events and crop phenology are displayed. These dates are compiled from observations made over the past 5-10 years in Gloucester County. Events in northern New Jersey should occur 7-10 days later.

Tree Fruit Trap Counts – Southern Counties

Tree Fruit Trap Counts – Northern Counties