Hello, everyone
From last Friday until Monday morning, most blueberry
production regions received around 30 mm of rain. The next few days’ weather
should be nice for pollination and other field activities, but wet fields and
washed roads could make things challenging.
In this post, I want to share some updates from the
sprout and crop fields. I also reshared helpful resources for distinguishing damage
symptoms in crop fields. GDDs are updated from April 1 to May 26.
Enjoy the weather!
Sprout fields:
-
Blueberry plant emergence is around 20-30%
or above in the Mainland fields; thus, please don’t apply Chikara+ Ignite to
your sprout fields.
-
Sinbar is also recommended to be applied
before blueberry emergence.
-
If you need to apply Velpar and Spartan,
please check plant stages, as it is risky.
-
If you applied any pre-emergence
herbicides over the last few weeks, you should start seeing responses from
herbicide treatments, including yellowing and brown leaves from grasses and
broadleaf weeds.
-
If you plan to use Callisto and Venture (Poast
Ultra) in sprout fields, the next 2-3 weeks would be ideal. Grasses and
Goldenrods are near the control points.
Crop fields:
-
Our earliest Southsore fields finished
pollination about 1.5 weeks ago.
-
For the rest of the Mainland crop fields,
we are looking at another 1-2 weeks to get over the bloom and pollination
period.
-
Monilinia Blight (Mummy Berry) early
disease symptoms detected.
I discovered some early symptoms of
Monilinia Blight infection on leaves in a crop field near Amherst. At this
stage, the early infection would first appear on leaves (Figure, leaf infection
symptoms from Monolinia Blight). Looking at early patches would be great when you visit crop fields over the next few days, especially in areas with
more leaf canopy. Infections on blossoms are still a bit early to see.
Damage Symptoms from Blueberry Diseases and Frosts
Figure 2 is a valuable resource
for distinguishing different symptoms caused by blueberry diseases and frost
damage in wild blueberries.
Figure
2. Photo and information credits: UMaine Wild Blueberry Research and Extension
Group
Wild Blueberry Weather Station GDD and Crop Stage Updates
We have selected 19 weather stations to report their
seasonal Growing Degree Days (GDD) accumulations. Please compare the cumulative
GDD from your weather station with local GDD recommendations on wild blueberry
crop stages: https://www.novascotiawildblueberryblog.com/p/phenology-tracker.html.
Figure
3. Selected Wild Blueberry Weather Stations and GDD Updates (April 1- May 26)
Table 1. Wild Blueberry Weather Stations and GDD Updates
(April 1- May 26)
