September 9, 2002 Volume 11 No. 26 Update on Pest Management and Crop Development
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Upcoming Pest Events | Trap Catches | Insects
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Upcoming Pest Events | Trap Catches | Insects
TRAP CATCHES (Number/trap/day)
Upcoming Pest Events | Trap Catches | Insects
2002 FRUIT ARTHROPOD PEST REVIEW (Art Agnello & Dave Kain, Entomology, Geneva)
This is beginning to look like one of those summers that hasn't quite decided to leave us for awhile, so it looks like the harvest season will have to proceed through yet more warm temperatures. At any rate, insect and mite life cycles can't go on indefinitely, so this is probably a good time to cast a preliminary evaluation of the past season's arthropod features. Peaks and Valleys. In a similar fashion to what we saw last year, this season's weather patterns seemed to exhibit a tendency to flirt with extreme conditions. Temperatures were hot-cold-hot, and precipitation was dry-wet-dry (with a few apparently annual devastating hailstorms thrown in), so the insect and mite activity this year seemed almost tame by comparison. Once again, pest problems were relatively moderate overall, generally occurring and progressing about as expected, so that once the tumultuous spring-to-summer changeover was complete, things tended to settle down. The key pests offered few surprises. As occurred in 2001 European red mite control seemed to be good during the early season, with some predictable outbreaks (plus a few of twospotted mites) provoked by the midsummer heat. Plum curculio probably entered the orchards quite early, perhaps during the mid-April heat wave, and then was generally undetectable for the next few weeks, but enjoyed another extended oviposition period amidst the intermittent showers and finished up about the middle of June, so a full protectant program of 2-3 sprays was needed in most orchards. Obliquebanded leafroller appeared on schedule, and generally responded well to treatment in orchards with reliably heavy populations. Once again, some growers may have been misled by an apparent absence of July larval populations that ended up turning into fruit damage later on. The dry weather also had its effect on foliar feeders such as aphids, leafhoppers and leafminers, which were increasingly hard to find as the summer wore on. Apple maggot normally would have been expected to show a similar effect, but some startlingly high populations were reflected in some of our demonstration plot trap catches throughout the eastern part of the state (Champlain Valley down to the Capital District and into the Hudson Valley). Of particular note this year was a troubling high incidence of woolly apple aphid throughout the state. Perhaps owing to the changing pesticide profile in apples, this pest is becoming more problematic each year, and there doesn't seem to be much in the toolbox that's capable of solving it. In the category of running concerns, despite a redoubling of efforts to maintain late-season fruit protection, internal worms have already begun showing up in harvest inspections, particularly in the state's western counties. We saw quite high trap catches of oriental fruit moth in western NY and of lesser appleworm in the eastern half, so this is not entirely unexpected. We'll be looking for samples and spray records from problem blocks during the harvest, to begin figuring out how best to approach solving this problem. Also, dogwood borer continues to be in evidence as more growers turn their attention to potential infestation sites in dwarf and interstem plantings. This was another year that Comstock mealybug showed up in processing pears, after taking it easy the last 2 or 3 years. A few pests either didn't make themselves very apparent or were at relatively nominal levels again this year, although it's always possible we weren't looking in the right places. Mirid bugs were apparently in their Dr. Jekyll phase this season, with little damage being found, even in insecticide trial check plots. Plenty of nymphs were present, but hatch did not begin until almost petal fall(Red Delicious), rather than peaking at full bloom as usual. Pear psylla, San Jose scale, and tarnished plant bug all appeared to be either low or else well controlled, although we’ll reserve final judgement until the harvest period is closer to its end.
(Dave Kain and Art Agnello, Entomology, Geneva)
We started out another season worrying we wouldn't have enough time to get all our pink sprays on due to the unseasonably warm early spring weather. Then, around bloom time it was so cool we were wondering whether the bees would be active enough to provide good pollination of many crops. (Turns out they did just fine; it appears that the cool spring weather delayed and/or stretched out the phenologies of some insects.) After bloom, things settled down to more "normal" patterns until it got hot and stopped raining in July. So, when it comes to weather and what constitutes "normal", all we really know is, you never know. Following are comparative listings of some of the pest events that occured this season (in Geneva) with calendar and degree-day normals. The values and dates are given +/- one standard deviation; i.e., events should occur within the stated range approximately 7 years out of 10.
This material is based upon work supported by Smith Lever funds from the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Scaffolds is published weekly from March to September by Cornell University -- NYS Agricultural Experiment Station (Geneva), and Ithaca -- with the assistance of Cornell Cooperative Extension. New York field reports welcomed. Send submissions by 3 p.m. Monday to: Scaffolds Fruit Journal Phone: 315-787-2341 FAX: 315-787-2326 E-mail: ama4@cornell.edu Online at <http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/scaffolds/> |
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