Commercial Horticulture: Future Cooperative Extension Programs, Business Planning and Crop Production Issues

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1 Jones County Center 110 South Market Street PO Box 218 Trenton, NC Phone: Fax: July 1, 2005 Volume 2, Number 7 Commercial Horticulture: Future Cooperative Extension Programs, Business Planning and Crop Production Issues This newsletter is intended for anyone interested in topics related to commercial fruit and vegetable production, business planning and North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service meetings related to the agriculture industry throughout North Carolina. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments related to the information in this newsletter. For back issues of this newsletter please go to the Jones County Extension and click on Horticulture. The website is: Mark Seitz Extension Area Specialized Agent Agriculture Commercial Horticulture (252) or Mark_Seitz@ncsu.edu Upcoming Workshops, Tours & Meetings July, 27, Eastern NC Pre-Plant Strawberry Meeting. Craven County Extension Center, 300 Industrial Parkway, New Bern, NC. Dinner at 6 PM. Meeting to follow. Contact Mark Seitz at (252) to register. July 27, Specialty Crops Field Day. Cunningham Research Farm. Kinston, NC. Contact Dr. Julia Kornegay at (919) for more August 2, Agriculture Spray Equipment and Backpack Sprayer Technology Demonstration Field Day & Dinner Meeting. Cunningham Research Farm, Kinston, NC. Contact your local County Extension office and agriculture or horticulture agent to register and for more August 5, nd NC Muscadine Grape Growers Annual Meeting. Hinnant Family Vineyard, 826 Pine Level-Micro Road, Pine Level, NC Contact your local County Extension Office for more September 13, Private Pesticide Safety Application Training. 5 PM 7 PM. Contact Bryant Spivey at (910) for more Business Planning & Management: Interested in starting a new operation, adding on to an existing venture? Have you done a cash flow analysis on this idea yet to see if it has a chance of working or if the banks will be willing to support your endeavor with a farm loan? This is an aspect of planning a business venture that is usually overlooked by people who start new businesses/business ventures. Cash flow analysis can show you how quickly you can expect your loan to be paid back and how profitable the venture will be over the life of the operation or business

2 loan. Cash flow analyses can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make them. Like any exercise the more detail you put into the analysis the better the results will be. It is a little like doing homework on a Friday afternoon. No one wants to do it but if you stick to it and get it done then you have the rest of the weekend to play. Start the cash flow analysis by collecting all available data related to what it will cost to run the venture or grow the crop. NCSU has fruit and vegetable crop enterprise budgets available online at: These budgets should provide you with a good guideline as to what kind of input costs you can expect when trying to grow a new crop. They can also be used to give you a sense of whether your operating costs are in line with the averages for the industry. Keep in mind that the costs of many of the items in these budgets are variable. The budgets listed were last updated in 2002 and obviously fuel has increased dramatically since that time. Be aware of such changes when evaluating your operation. Once you have completed a cash flow analysis then you have to decide how passionate you are going to be about adding this new vegetable or fruit to your operation or if it is something you feel will hinder your ability to do well with the work you are already doing. Strawberries Crop Production Strawberry planting season is only two months off and you need to be thinking about your fungicide spray program for the crop year. Managing your fungicide program is as important as every other aspect of your production process. As the fungicides and miticides become more site specific in their modes of action there is an increasing risk of these pests developing resistance to these products. Therefore it is important to make proper management imperative not only to avoid the chance that resistant populations will occur but also to help keep your costs under control. I have included two tables with information regarding fungicide use in strawberries. Table 1 contains information on the efficacy of a number of fungicides labeled for use in strawberries and Table 2 gives an example of a spray program to follow. This information was compiled by Drs. Frank Louws and Dr. Barclay Poling at NCSU. Please review these tables and call me if you have any questions. Downy Mildew In 2004 downy mildew outbreaks resulted in some severe crop loss to the cucumber crop in the region last year. It also reared its ugly head in pumpkins and squash last year. The high humidity in July and August combined with high temperatures provided nearly ideal conditions for this disease to spread north from Florida. This year an outbreak of downy mildew has been reported on cucumbers in New Jersey in mid-june. It seems to have skipped NC for now but we are by no means out of the woods. This was the disease that hit pumpkin, squash and cucumbers very hard in The following information is from Dr. Gerald Holmes, Plant Pathology Specialist at NCSU. Downy mildew was confirmed in 10 acres of pickling and slicing cucumber (cultivars: Jackson Supreme and Speedway) on June 13, 2005 in Cumberland County, New Jersey. Symptoms of the disease were first observed on the 8th and became obvious by the 11th. Heavy sporulation was observed on older leaves and plants were just setting their first fruit. No downy mildew was found on other nearby cucurbits (yellow squash, zucchini and watermelon) which were also purchased as transplants from Florida. Virtually all cucumber plants in the field are infected and symptoms are currently confined to the older leaves. This field is fairly isolated from other cucumber plantings. No downy mildew was detected in three nearby fields. This outbreak of downy mildew is an unusual event since the most recent report of the disease (June 8) came from southern Georgia. The disease does not typically make such a long jump, but instead moves incrementally from south to north as the season progresses. (Once exception to this typical scenario

3 occurred last year when the disease apparently jumped from south Florida to North Carolina.) One explanation for the long jump is that the field was transplanted using plants purchased from Florida. Thus, plants may have arrived already infected. Transplanting occurred on May 3 which is more than a month before symptoms were observed. Given that the disease takes about 5 to 8 days to develop symptoms (under optimum conditions), this seems like a long time for symptoms to develop if plants were infected upon arrival in New Jersey. However, field conditions [in the spring] are typically less than ideal and recent high temperatures could be slowing symptom development. A forecast from this new disease source was issued on June 14 and can be viewed at " and clicking on "Current Forecasts", then on "Cumberland County, NJ" at the bottom of the page. Downy Mildew Control Recommendations: Control recommendations for downy mildew in cucurbits can be found online at: or on pages 8 and 9 in the 2005 NC Agricultural Chemical Manual Vegetable Crop Disease Control Schedule. If you need copies of this information please stop by any Extension office or call me at the Jones County office and I will give you copies. There are a number of new fungicides available for controlling downy mildew, all with varying modes of action. As with any insect or disease management program be sure to rotate the mode of action in the chemistries you use in order to avoid the development of resistance to these products by the organism. Sweet Potato information The following information is from Dr. David Monks at NCSU regarding yellow nutsedge control in sweet potatoes. I have included a copy of the product label for Sandea which he discusses in his comments. Sandea - Attached is the recently approved emergency registration (label) of Sandea for sweet potatoes. Please note that it is for nutsedge control in this crop. Our recommendations to growers for Sandea use should be to apply it with surfactant at 0.5 to 0.75 ounce of product per acre. Results from our program have shown that 0.5 to 0.6 ounces to give good control of nutsedge in this crop. It can be applied broadcast or if growers are concerned with crop injury, then it can be applied to only the nutsedge patches or areas in the field (spot treatment). It should only be applied to sweet potatoes transplanted at least 28 days and no more than 45 days. If applied to sweet potatoes transplanted over 45 days, the crop does not have time to overcome some of the delay in sizing sometimes seen with this product. The label says that there is potential to delay the crop. However under good growing conditions, sweet potatoes usually recover and maintain their yield. This product is excellent on nutsedge as it will give over 90% control of this weed. Outlook -was recently registered for preemergence control in sweet potato. It is a similar product and gives similar weed control as Dual. As you already probably know, Dual was not registered in sweet potato this year. It was registered last year through the emergency use process for pigweed control in sweet potato. This year with the registration of Outlook, it was felt that it was no longer justified through this process. I have had many questions with regard to when Dual will be registered in sweet potato. It is likely to be registered within the year. However, EPA told me last month that it could still be a few months. I have had several questions about growers using Dual this season with hopes that Dual would be registered by harvest and marketing season. First of all, without a registration, it is illegal to use Dual on sweet potato. Secondly, no one, including Syngenta, EPA, nor I, knows when it will be registered in sweet potato. Thus, our recommendation is to not use it since it is not registered. Insect Management in Squash & Pumpkin Squash bug injury in pumpkin and squash can result in severe damage to crop quantity and quality. The following information is from Dr. Ken

4 Sorenson at NCSU. The squash bugs feed on all cucurbits, but prefer squash and pumpkins. Adults and nymphs feed in colonies, sucking plant juices, and injecting a toxic substance which causes vines to turn black and dry. When infestations are heavy, small plants and individual runners may be destroyed, fruit may not form, and, if it does, bugs may feed on it. Squash bugs over winter as adults and in the spring fly into gardens and mate. The dark brownish-gray oval-elongate adults (about 5/8 inch long) are often found in pairs on the undersides of leaves or around the base of plants. Bronze-colored eggs are laid in groups usually on the undersides of leaves, in the angles formed by leaf veins. Nymphs that hatch from the eggs are green with rose-colored to dark appendages. Larger nymphs are grayish white with dark heads, legs and antennae. Wing pads are visible on the last two instars. Five to eight weeks are required for development from egg to adult. Only one generation occurs each year, but because of the extended egg-laying period, adults and nymphs are present throughout the summer. squash, 1 - winter squash and malathion, 1 - squash, 3- pumpkin. Spray when nymphs are small. Young nymphs are the most susceptible stage to insecticides, while adults are difficult to kill. Further information related to true bugs can be found on the Insect Note #42 from the Department of Entomology Insect Notes. This information can be found online at: s/veg42.html The photos included in this newsletter show injury symptoms as well as an image of the eggs, nymphs and adults. Picture 1: Squash bug injury symptoms in pumpkin Small boards or shingles placed near plants provide a nighttime gathering place for squash bugs, which can be removed and destroyed in the morning. Other cultural practices which lessen damage from this bug include proper fertilization for a vigorous crop, destruction of crop debris, and growing resistant varieties such as Butternut, Royal Acorn, and Sweet Cheese. Handpicking adults and/or leaves with eggs is recommended for small gardens. If chemical control is needed in commercial squash plantings, use carbaryl (Sevin) 50WP, 80WP, 4XLR, or 5D at a rate of 1 lb ai/acre; endosulfan (Thiodan) 2EC or 50WP at 1 lb ai/acre; or esfenvalerate (Asana) XL, 0.66EC at a rate of 1 lb ai/acre. Carbaryl and endosulfan have a 0 day waiting period and esfenvalerate requires 3 days between last application and harvest. In home gardens, use carbaryl, endosulfan, naled (Dibrom) 60EC (2 tsp/gal spray) or malathion 57EC (2 tsp/gal spray). Waiting periods to harvest are: carbaryl, 0; endosulfan, 0; naled, 0 - summer

5 Picture 2: Squash bug eggs, nymphs. If you have questions about any of the upcoming meetings, business strategies, or crop production management issues, please call me at the Jones County Extension Center at (252) I can also be reached by at: Mark_Seitz@ncsu.edu