WISCONSIN FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLE NEWSLETTER
October 1, 2007

Contents:

Winter Meetings
Orchard Rodent Control
Can you afford to grow apples?
Vegetable Report
Peninsular Station Report
Degree Days
Drought Conditions
UW Contacts

Winter Meetings

The Wisconsin Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Conference is the standard winter Extension meeting for Wisconsin apple, berry, and fresh market vegetable growers and marketers.  In 2008 Wisconsin is hosting the North American Farmer Direct Marketing Association Convention at the Kalahari Resort in Wisconsin Dells on February 18-20.  The NAFDMA conference will supplant our regular winter meeting that is normally held in January.  Please put these dates on your calendar and plan to attend.  Since the meeting is being held locally (no need to buy a plane ticket) this will be the least expensive opportunity for you to attend the meeting.  Production workshops will be held on Monday February 18.  We hope to see all of you there!

Orchard Rodent Control

         Every year some apple growers lose some trees, especially young trees to rodent injury.  While we will never eliminate rodent injury, we can reduce the incidence.  This article will attempt to describe the problem and outline methods to minimize the chances of injury.

            The rodent that does most of the girdling injury in apple orchards in Wisconsin is the vole.  Two species are found in Wisconsin.  The most common is the Meadow Vole which is found throughout the state.  The Pine Vole is usually found only in southern areas of the state and along the Mississippi River to about La Crosse.  The two species are most readily distinguished by the length of their tails.  Meadow voles have a longer tail (roughly 2X) than pine voles.  Other characteristics of the two species are shown in Table 1. 

            Their diet usually consists of grasses, roots, fruit, seeds, etc.  However, in the winter or other times when other foods are short, voles will gnaw through the bark of trees to get at the cambium layers and the phloem.  Meadow voles will often gnaw off the bark up to the snow line as long as snow can provide shelter from predators.

            Voles are short lived but prolific animals.  Females can breed as early as three weeks of age and after a gestation period of 21 days gives birth to litters ranging from 4 to 7 pups.  A female can produce 3-4 litters per year in the wild. (In captivity meadow voles have produced as many as 17 litters per year).  Populations can increase rapidly under favorable conditions. 

            Given the right conditions voles can do significant damage to apple trees.  One study in New York estimated that vole damage and control measures cost growers an average of $108 per acre per year.  Severe damage in young orchards could be substantially more expensive.

            A critical part of any control program is to monitor populations.  This is easily done by placing slices of apple under shingles or pieces of tar paper and then re-checking after 24 hours.  Use at least 20 monitoring stations in a suspect section of the orchard.  If more than 15% of the apples show gnaw marks after 24 hours active control measures are warranted.

            Three types of control measures are usually practiced by orchardists.  The first is orchard floor management.  Since voles require food and shelter to grow and reproduce, removing these will help reduce populations.  Mowing the grass in an orchard 3 or maybe 4 times per year with a flail or rotary mower will eliminate habitat and help keep populations in check.  Mowing removes cover under which voles hide from their predators.  Increasing predator efficiency will also reduce vole populations.  In addition, a vegetation free area around tree trunks will greatly discourage voles from living right next to trees.  Mowing is relatively inexpensive and is the first guard against vole damage.  The last thing apple growers should do in the autumn before snow fall is to mow the orchard short.  If possible, remove or chop any dropped fruit to eliminate this potential food source.  For more information on orchard floor management see Extension bulletin A3562 Orchard Floor Management.

            The second technique is to protect the trunk by placing a cylinder of wire mesh around it.  The preferred material is 1/2 inch mesh galvanized hardware cloth.  An 18" square can be rolled into a suitable trunk guard.  Commercially available plastic guards are also suitable.  However, the spiral plastic trunk wraps are not recommended.  These do not allow air movement around trunks allowing fungi to attack the bark.  They should be removed each spring and be replaced each fall, so their overall cost is higher than hardware cloth.  If possible have the lower edge of the trunk guard extend 1 to 2 inches below the soil surface.  See Extension Bulletin A2148 Meadow Mouse Control.

            The third technique is to use poison baits to reduce populations.  Rodenticides are important and are usually a necessary part of a control program.  However, they should be used only if populations are known to exist and after good orchard floor management is practiced.  Rodenticides cannot replace habitat destruction!  The most commonly used rodenticides are zinc phosphide baits.  These can either be pelleted or granular mixed with cracked corn.  Pelleted baits are considered safer and more effective than granular baits.  All zinc phosphide baits are acute poisons and are restricted use pesticides that may only be used by certified pesticide applicators.  Some growers broadcast the rodenticide throughout the orchard, but that is not as effective as using bait stations.  Several kinds of bait stations are effective.  An easy and effective bait station is made with 2" PVC pipe.  Glue one foot sections of pipe into a "T", put the bait in the base of the "T", and place the stations on their side throughout the orchard (2-3 per acre).  Pelleted baits may also be placed under a shingle or a piece of tar paper or similar materials.  The purpose of bait stations is to protect the bait from the environment and to prevent non-target animals from eating the bait.

            Any of the above control measures alone will have some effect on protecting trees from damage.  However, used together they provide excellent control potential.  Just because rodent populations are low or controlled one year does not mean that control in subsequent years is not required.  Managing vole populations is not difficult, but it will require some attention.

Teryl Roper, UW-Madison Extension Fruit Crop Specialist

 Much of the material for this article was extracted from "Vole Management in Fruit Orchards",  by M.E. Tobin and M.E. Richmond, Biological Report 5, U.S. Fish and Wildlife service, March 1993.

Can you afford to grow apples?

             At first glance the question in the title to this article seems silly.  But after sufficient thought the question makes perfect sense.  Most of us agree that we are in the apple business to make money, to be profitable.  Is your business profitable?  I challenge you to think about profitability as you read the remainder of this article.

            All apple growers produce more than one apple cultivar.  This provides for proper pollination, spreads out the harvest and sales load, and spreads risk.  Not all cultivars sell at the same price, even for similar grades and qualities of fruit.  If you follow apple prices, cultivars with the least production usually command the highest price.  On the other hand the wholesale market wants large quantities of a few cultivars with consistent quality for the lowest possible price.  Most wholesale buyers don’t want Lodi, Viking, Akane, Regent, Fameuse, Ben Davis, Wolf River, Golden Russet, Elstar, Honeygold, Fireside, Melrose, Orrin, Brock, etc.  That is not to say that these apples don’t have qualities that make them desirable, but there is little market demand for them.

            The point of all this is that we have to grow what customers will buy.  But we shouldn’t sell the fruit for less than the cost of production.  For example, McIntosh is the most  widely grown apple in Wisconsin.  It also has very exacting horticultural requirements to produce the highest quality of fruit.  It ripens unevenly and requires multiple pickings, it tends to drop as fruit mature, the fruit bruise easily, red color is hard to achieve without severe pruning and good weather.  It is hard to produce good McIntosh, yet McIntosh usually commands the lowest price in the marketplace.  It is not uncommon for 12/3 McIntosh to sell for $8.00 to $8.50 per carton most years.  Good packing records will also show that McIntosh has a rather high cull rate, too.  Can you afford to produce and sell McIntosh at $8.50 per carton?  Are you subsidizing sales of McIntosh from sales of other higher profit margin apples?  A 1991 analysis estimated the cost of growing and packing a 42 pound box of apples at $7.50.  Costs, but not prices, have risen since then. Can you afford to grow apples?

            Do you keep track of costs and returns by block?  If not, you should.  Are you losing money on one block and covering the loss with profits from another?  If so, you should consider pushing out the unprofitable block; the sooner the better.  Can you afford to grow apples?

            Some orchardists are selling their fruit “on the tree”.  The orchardist provides the production materials and labor and owns the trees, but the buyer harvests, packs and sells the fruit.  The purchase price is agreed upon before harvest in many cases.  In other cases compensation is based on quality.  There is nothing inherently wrong with these sorts of arrangements.  In fact, they may be a more efficient way of doing business is some cases.  However, orchardists need to know what their actual cost of production is before negotiating a price.  In the same 1991 estimate, the cost of producing apples, not including harvest and packing, was about $5.00 per bushel.  If you sell for less than this amount you need to be sure you have included all costs in your calculations.  Can you afford to grow apples?

            Most growers are good at including all cash costs in their calculations of cost of production.  Cash costs include things like fertilizer, pesticides, labor, fuel and lubricants, supplies, taxes, interest expense, office costs, professional services, etc.  These are things you write a check to purchase.  There are also non-cash expenses.  The primary example of a non-cash expense is depreciation.  All assets must be depreciated.  This would include items like tractors, trucks, buildings and trees.  What depreciation allows you to do is to set aside funds to replace capital investments once their useful life is over.  Too many farmers are living on their equity.  Money is not being set aside to replace capital assets like tractors, sprayers, coolers, packing lines and most importantly trees.  As a result, when the farmer wishes to retire or pursue some other line of work and wants to sell the orchard, the capital assets have no value.  This leads to the orchard being sold for values similar to unimproved corn land rather than a higher value orchard.  Are you living off your equity?  Can you afford to grow apples?

            Many (most?) Wisconsin apple growers have off farm income for the farm family.  In this case, obviously, the family is not entirely dependent on income from the farm for living expenses.  While this spreads risk, it also provides the opportunity for one enterprise (off-farm income) to subsidize the farm.  Many part time farmers farm because they enjoy the rural way of life.  While they want to derive income from their land, doing so may not spell the difference between financial success and failure for the family.  As a result, they may not be as aggressive in modernizing and working to extract maximum returns from the investment.  So, when the part time farmer markets a crop there is not the same acute need as full time apple growers have.  Are you subsidizing apple production from off-farm income?  Can you afford to grow apples?

            During the winter months I hope you will take a few moments to calculate your cost of production, block by block if possible.  Compare these figures to the return realized through sales, again, block by block if possible.  Don’t forget to include depreciation!  If you need some direction or help, contact your local county Extension Agriculture agent or me.  We can offer templates and other tools to simplify your task. Can you honestly afford to produce apples?  I hope so.

 Teryl Roper, Extension Horticulturist, UW-Madison

Vegetable Report

There’s not much good to say this time around except that there have been no confirmed cases of late blight on potatoes reported in Wisconsin this year.

The frost that occurred on the night of September 14-15 was devastating to say the least. All warm-season crops were lost if they were not being grown in hoop houses or other protected structures. All vine crops have declined if not by the squash vine borer or squash bugs then definitely by the frost. What this will do to the fruit will yet to be determined. Growers should do their best to get the pumpkins and squash out of the field and into a warm, dry location to cure to harden their shells which will preserve them longer. The stems (or handles) can also be damaged by the frost like the vines, making them more brittle and prone to breakage.

Recent heavy rains during the month of August caused crop failure in many parts of the state. The following article provides guidance as to how to handle insurance claims for federal disaster assistance.

Federal Disaster Assistance for Vegetable Growers Affected by Recent Floods and Droughts
September 6, 2007

Paul D. Mitchell, Agricultural and Applied Economics, UW Madison/Extension (608) 265-6514, pdmitchell@wisc.edu  

The recent flooding and heavy rainfall in parts of Wisconsin made national news. Many conventional and organic fresh market vegetable growers were hit especially hard by these disasters, while droughts have hit similar growers in other parts of Wisconsin. Given the federal disaster declaration for some Wisconsin counties, many vegetable farmers are wondering about the availability of federal assistance for their crop losses. This bulletin is a quick summary of current federal programs available for these and other farmers and some basic recommendations. First available crop insurance options are quickly summarized, though crop insurance is not the focus of this bulletin. Next, for uninsured growers, available USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) programs are described.

 Federal Crop Insurance For common grain, forage, and processing vegetable crops, Wisconsin farmers can buy federal crop insurance policies supported by the USDA Risk Management Agency (RMA). Farmers who bought this insurance coverage last spring and suffered yield losses due to recent flooding and/or drought will receive indemnity payments if their crop losses are sufficiently large. Affected farmers with federal crop insurance coverage should contact their crop insurance agents. For more information about federal crop insurance in Wisconsin, see the resources listed at the end of this bulletin and the Crop Insurance Materials on Paul D. Mitchell’s Extension Web Page: http://www.aae.wisc.edu/mitchell/extension.htm.

 In 2007, AGR-Lite, a new type of federal crop insurance policy, was available for Wisconsin farmers. AGR-Lite is primarily intended for crop and livestock farmers for whom effective federal crop insurance policies are unavailable, including both conventional and organic growers. Because AGR-Lite was new and approved late in 2006, few policies were sold in Wisconsin for 2007. Affected farmers with AGR-Lite coverage should contact their crop insurance agents. For more information about AGR-Lite, contact your crop insurance agent or see the RMA’s 2007 AGR-Lite Fact Sheet http://www.rma.usda.gov/pubs/2003/PAN-1667-07.pdf.

 Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) For farmers growing less common crops and/or organic crops, including fresh market vegetables, crop-specific federal crop insurance policies supported by the RMA may not exist. To fill this gap, the USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) manages the Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program (NAP) to provide insurance coverage. NAP coverage is similar to catastrophic coverage for standard insurable crops—a 50% or greater yield loss is needed to trigger payments, losses are paid at 55% of the established conventional price for the crop, and farmer premiums are generally low. Affected farmers with NAP coverage should contact their county FSA office to report losses and determine eligibility for payments. For more information about NAP coverage, contact your county FSA office or see the FSA Noninsured Crop Disaster Assistance Program Fact Sheet http://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/nap07.pdf.

Learning for life

 Federal Disaster Assistance for Farmers Other than federal crop insurance and NAP coverage, no permanent USDA disaster program exists for farmers suffering crop losses from natural disasters. Historically, temporary ad hoc programs have been established for specific disasters. For example, the most recent became law this May, combining several disaster programs into one bill (see the FSA Agricultural Assistance Act of 2007 Fact Sheet http://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/disasteraid07.pdf). Potentially a program may be established for the recent flooding/drought losses in Wisconsin. An important step in this process is for the USDA to develop an accurate assessment of actual crop losses for both standard commodity crops, as well as non-traditional and organic crops, including fresh market vegetables sold at farmers’ markets, road side stands, and through CSA’s. Hence, Wisconsin vegetable farmers suffering significant crop loss from recent natural disasters should contact their county FSA office to report their losses.

Though currently no disaster program exists for Wisconsin farmers affected by these recent weather related losses, a disaster program may be established in the future. Thus, Wisconsin vegetable farmers adversely affected by recent natural disasters should document their losses, including keeping records of acreage planted, yields and production, as well as photographs of damaged crops, buildings, fences, and other structures. Again, contact your county FSA office to report your losses and for information on documentation of production and losses to maintain for, possible, future disaster programs.

Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) The FSA’s Emergency Conservation Program (ECP) provides emergency funding and technical assistance to farmers to rehabilitate farmland damaged by natural disasters. For farmers affected by flooding and excessive rainfall, funding may be available to remove debris and to restore fences and conservation structures. Eligibility requirements must be met and payment limits exist. For more information, see the FSA Emergency Conservation Program 2007 Fact Sheet http://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/ecpagi07.pdf. Vegetable farmers interested in ECP funding to help with flood clean up should contact their county FSA office before taking any actions on the land to determine their eligibility and to begin the process for obtaining funding.

Emergency Farm Loans

 The FSA provides Emergency Farm Loans to help farms recover from natural disasters. These loans can be used for a variety of recovery purposes, such as to restore/replace essential property, pay part or all of production costs during a disaster year, pay family living expenses, reorganize the farm operation, and refinance some debts. These loans are generally short term (less than seven years) and have competitive interest rates (currently 3.75%). Eligibility and collateral requirements apply. Loan recipients must keep acceptable farm records and may be required to participate in financial management training and to purchase crop insurance. In addition to Emergency Farm Loans, the FSA administers several other loan programs to help Wisconsin vegetable farmers recover from recent disasters, including loans for beginning or socially disadvantaged farmers, plus providing loan guarantees for qualifying farmers who do not meet lenders’ normal underwriting criteria. Wisconsin vegetable farmers interested in an Emergency Farm Loan or other FSA farm loan programs to help with flood recovery should contact their county FSA office for more information.

Summary

 Recent flooding and excessive rainfall in parts of Wisconsin and drought in other parts of the state have hit some farmers especially hard, including many fresh market vegetable growers, both conventional and organic. Some affected farmers had federal crop insurance or NAP coverage, which will likely provide some financial help. In the future, more fresh market vegetable farmers will likely consider participating in available insurance programs. For those without insurance coverage, Congress and the USDA currently do not have a disaster program established, but could possibly in the future. Hence, affected farmers should report losses to the FSA, document losses and maintain these documents in case a disaster program is established. The FSA has other programs that uninsured vegetable growers may find useful, including the Emergency Conservation Program and various farm loan programs. It is important that all Wisconsin farmers adversely affected by recent natural disasters contact their county FSA office to report their losses, so that the USDA can develop accurate assessments of the actual damages. Furthermore, most vegetable farmers will likely find that the FSA can help them recover from these recent disasters, but they must first contact their county FSA office. All these programs have eligibility requirements and require various types of paperwork and record keeping, but can be very useful for helping Wisconsin fresh market vegetable growers recover and get back to growing some of the world’s best vegetables.

 For More Information

 Paul D. Mitchell, Agricultural and Applied Economics, UW Madison/Extension State Specialist, (608) 265-6514, pdmitchell@wisc.edu

Paul D. Mitchell’s Extension Web Page: http://www.aae.wisc.edu/mitchell/extension.htm.

An Overview of Federal Crop Insurance in Wisconsin: http://www.aae.wisc.edu/mitchell/Federal_Crop_Insurance_in_Wisconsin.pdf

UW Extension Responds-Flood August 2007: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/ag/issues/ExtensionResponds-Flood-August2007.html

UW Extension Responds-Drought 2007: http://www.uwex.edu/ces/ag/issues/drought/

USDA-FSA Wisconsin State Office, 8030 Excelsior Drive, Suite 100, Madison, WI 53717-2906. Telephone (608) 662-4422, Fax (608) 662-9425. Wisconsin State FSA Web page: http://www.fsa.usda.gov/FSA/stateoffapp?mystate=wi&area=home&subject=landing&to pic=landing 

Snap Beans: Lot’s to write about this week since I’ve been out of the state for the past four weeks.  In late July, there appeared to be massive migrations of winged soybean aphids.  Beginning about August 10, symptoms of virus infection began to appear on snap bean plantings and other susceptible crops.  Symptoms were widespread, probably distributed over a broader range than we’ve seen in the past 5 years.  Limited testing has shown that the primary virus is cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), similar to previous years.  CMV appears to have also caused serious damage on peppers and pumpkins.

 Over the past few weeks, there were several snap bean fields in the Midwest with symptoms of halo blight.  Symptoms include tiny water soaked angular spots surrounded with large and distinct yellow haloes.  In advanced cases, the upper foliage of affected plants is a distinct yellow.  In fields, spread is primarily through blowing rain, but the bacterium can move on contaminated equipment, workers’ shoes, and even wildlife.  The halo blight bacterium is a rarity these days due to careful seed production in arid western states.  I have not seen halo blight in Wisconsin in close to 25 years.  The finding of halo blight brings out some important points.  First, we have gone through one or more generations of field personnel in most companies and most have never seen halo blight.  Few know what to do regarding management.  Second, when fields are planted, there must be accurate records on the seedlot planted, identifying numbers, date of planting, etc.  If halo blight shows up, without these records it is virtually impossible to trace the seed origin.  Third, when fields exhibit symptoms and are harvested early to preserve pod quality or are bypassed due to a variety of issues, the field residue or standing plants need to be chopped and disked into the soil to accelerate residue decay.  Finally, fields with halo blight symptoms should be avoided for planting snap, wax and lima beans for at least one and preferably 2-3 years.  We’ll cover more details on halo blight management at the winter meeting in Milwaukee. 

Walt Stevenson, Vegetable Plant Pathologist.

Preserving Pumpkin Quality
Sunburn: A stretch of 8-10 days of bright sunny, weather and afternoon temperatures in the upper 80°s increases the chances of sunburn on ripe pumpkins still in the field. Pumpkins without irrigation and certain varieties seem more susceptible but all fruit can be affected. In some fields, damage can range anywhere from 5-10% to as high as 20%. If harvest is not in your immediate future, you still should maintain foliage cover with your disease control program in order to protect your fruit from the sun. The additional cost for more fungicide applications should be taken into consideration. Where the foliage can no longer provide protection from the sun, growers should consider harvest in the next few days.
    Early symptoms of sunscald start off as small dark red patches on the surface. These areas are slightly sunken. Area enlarges and starts to soften with secondary infection
 
Rind Damage and beetles: Growers should be checking pumpkin fruit about every other day for feeding damage from cucumber beetles and northern corn rootworm beetles. Their feeding on the rind of the fruit can cause significant injury making the fruit unmarketable. Major damage can take place in as little as two-three days. Pumpkin fields very close to corn fields seem to be most susceptible especially after a light frost that damages corn.
 

Above. Western, Northern, southern (spotted) corn rootworm as well as striped cu beetle all feed on and cause damage to pumpkin rinds.  (Photo from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln)
 
Pumpkin Harvesting, Curing and Storage.  Here are some pointers on curing, handling and storing pumpkins and winter squash. Harvest fruit as soon as they are mature and prior to frost. Both squashes and pumpkins should be well matured before harvest and storage. In some years when maturity is late, pumpkin fruit with at least 40-50% of the fruit surface with orange color will continue to ripen. Use care in handling fruits to avoid wounds. Cuts and bruises in the rind are open to decay organisms that may cause a great deal of loss in the short run. Under proper conditions wound areas can heal over by producing cork tissue. The protective tissue seems to develop best at relatively high temperature and in moist atmosphere.

• Harvest fruit when mature avoiding cuts and bruises.
• Cure after harvest 80-85 degrees F and 75-80% humidity for about 10 days.
• After curing, store at 50-60 degrees and 70% humidity.
• Keep fruit dry and provide good air circulation.
• Temperatures below 40 degrees for long periods cause chilling injury and lead to fruit rots.
• Pumpkins will keep for 2-3 months

It is essential to keep the surface dry during the storage period. Any dry place where as close as possible to the desired storage temperatures can be maintained is suitable for storage of pumpkins and squashes. They keep best when not piled on top of each other but this is not practical for most operations. Try to keep stacks at minimum heights leaving room for good air circulation. Pumpkins will not keep so well as the hard winter squashes but pumpkins in good condition can be held 2 to 3 months without problems.

Bob Precheur, Ohio State Universty

Peninsular Research Station - Disease and Insect Reporting Service

Cherries: Post harvest Bravo applications for leafspot will be very important this year as the heavy crop and drought has stress orchards trees. Leafspot inoculm is present in low to moderate levels throughout the county and any future rain events will trigger infections. Every effort should be made to keep leaves on cherry trees as late into the fall as possible. The earliness of the tart cherry crop this year means that we will need to keep leaves protected from leafspot infection for a longer time than usual. It may be necessary to make two post harvest fungicide applications. An alternative to Bravo as a post harvest fungicide is a copper fungicide. Coppers tend to be cheaper than the other fungicides that we commonly use, but are just as effective in controlling leafspot. Phytotoxicity for coppers is less of a concern with late season applications, as temperatures start to cool and the leaves are mature making them less susceptible to this potential problem. If you are interested in trying a copper fungicide late this season on your tart cherries contact me here at the research station and I will provide you with information on rates.

Apples: Most growers can consider maintaining longer fungicide application intervals in those orchards that have no scab lesions on leaves or fruits. For those orchards with scab lesions present growers likely will need to rely on Captan to keep secondary scab from spreading through the rest of the season. When Captan is used alone, strictly as a protectant, it should be applied at the 6 to 8 lb / A rate. Spray intervals of 10 to 14 days should be sufficient to keep secondary scab under control.

Cherries: We have not seen much pressure from European Red Mite and Two-Spotted Mites to this point in the season. Typically hot temperatures, high humidity and a lack of rainfall are all ideal for the build up of these pests. Some orchards are now starting to see a build up in pressure from theses mite pests. The threshold for European Red Mite on tart cherry is greater than 10 to 15 mites per leaf. Cherry trees can tolerate higher Two-Spotted Mite populations and should be treated when their numbers are slightly higher, in the 15 to 20 mite per leaf range. Should dry hot weather continue and cause a build up of these pests control options include both Apollo and Savey. Apollo rates range from 4 to 8 oz/A and Savey from 3 to 6 oz/A. Higher rates should be used when two-spotted mites are present, as they tend to be more difficult to control. Neither of these miticides are damaging to predatory mites making them a good choice.

Apples: Control applications for the second generation of codling moth and apple maggot should have been applied over the past few weeks. We are getting to the time of the season where additional insecticide applications should not be necessary. The first week of September is usually the latest time for insecticide applications. Sprays would only be necessary now if none have been made in the last 10 days.

Degree Day Accumulations

Drought Monitor

UW Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Contacts