by Judy Van Put The Middletown office of the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Orange County was the location for the 2012 Hudson Valley Nursery, Greenhouse and Vegetable Production Workshop for commercial growers. The morning session began with Margery Daughtry, Plant Pathologist, who gave a discussion of Hot Diseases of Perennials and other Nursery/Greenhouse Plants. She distributed an informative leaflet on “Box Blight,” the new aggressive exotic disease that is ravaging boxwoods on Long Island and
in other areas of the United States and discussed many other potential problems facing professional growers. Dan Gilrein, Extension Entomologist at Cornell’s Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center, gave a presentation on insect pests of perennials and other nursery/greenhouse plants. He began his talk with the good news that the 9-spotted Ladybeetle, which was designated as the official New York State insect but has lately been suffering a great decline, was found in Amagansett, Long Island, NY. Word of sightings in other areas of the northeast
is providing scientists the hope that the species will make a comeback. Attendees learned about exotic and new pests on the radar — including the Red Headed Flea Beetle; Mites, Aphids, Leafhoppers, Caterpillers and the Western Flower Thrip. These tiny insects are now thriving in greenhouses as a consequence of overuse of Conserve, and greenhouse growers are seeing resistance to the chemical in thrips. Growers were given instruction on control of these and many other pests, suggestions which included discarding infested plants, segregating new from old
plants, placing new plants upwind from the old, having a plant-free period, and using bio-controls. The class was given up-to-date information from Cornell University on many of the pesticides and other products that are on the market to counteract these problems, such as insecticides, miticides, bark sprays and soil treatments; replacement formulas, restricted use products and products that were renamed — as well as updates and guidelines for administering these products.
3) Typical practice in Ohio, where a number of growers use this practice every year, is to apply a mixture of 8 percent soybean oil, 1 percent of an emulsifier (i.e. spreader/sticker), and 91 percent water. Imed recommends using 100 gallons of water directed at the wood (so change all of those percentage signs to gallons and there’s your tank mix). I know this seems like a lot of water to use when there’s so little surface area to catch it, but the canes need to get soaked in order to for this to work. 4) Concord appears to be the most sensitive variety to this treatment, but it does delay budbreak on other varieties as well, perhaps just not as long
as Concord or as consistently. 5) The closer the material is applied to budbreak, the less of an effect that the treatment seems to have. Imed found that mid-winter applications were more effective than early spring applications. What does that mean for this year? It would have been closer to ideal to apply these sprays a few weeks ago, but then again, who would have thought that we were going to have this kind of weather 3-4 weeks ago? 6) Imed has found, as have growers in Ohio who have used this, that the delay in budbreak does not impact fruit composition or maturity (i.e., delayed harvest) at the end of the season, unless the delay is extensive (more than 2 weeks). So is it worth trying? I’ll give you the standard, yet truthful, Extension answer: It depends. The fact that we’re in
a warm stretch of weather, closer to budbreak than we normally would be this time of year, probably means that the treatment won’t be as effective as it would be if it was applied earlier in the winter. The other factor, obviously, is cost. The material that Imed used in his trial is a soybean oil called Amigo, which is currently running about $24 per gallon. At 8 gallons per acre, plus a gallon of a spreader/sticker, you’re looking at just over $200 per acre just in materials (ouch!). Now, protecting a Concord crop from freeze damage might be worth that if you were pretty confident that it would get you past any last freezes that might occur. But I’m sure most growers will take a hard look at that number and want some better information about the practice before spending that kind of money.
School A18
Budbreak from A14 1) Applying soybean, mineral and vegetable oils can delay budbreak by anywhere from 2-20 days, depending on several factors including variety, timing, and coverage (Dami and Beam, 2004). 2) These oils can by phytotoxic at high enough levels. For a mineral oil like Stylet Oil, symptoms of phytotoxicity occurred at about 5 percent concentration (v/v). Phytotoxicity for soybean oils did not occur at concentrations up to 10 percent by volume. If you want to use a mineral oil like Stylet Oil, the suggestion is to use less than a 2.5 percent solution to avoid phytotoxicity problems.
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Page 15 - Section A • COUNTRY FOLKS GROWER • April 2012
2012 Hudson Valley Nursery & Greenhouse Growers School