Fruit Program News
Winter and Early-Season Fire Blight Management Fact Sheet
Dr. Quan Zeng, Dept. of Plant Pathology and Ecology, The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station
"Fire blight is a devastating disease of apples and pears caused by a bacterial pathogen Erwinia amylovora. Last year, serious fire blight was observed throughout New England orchards. What winter/early-season management practices shal we do to keep the fire blight away from our orchards?" View fact sheet on Fire Blight
Submitted by Jon Clements, jon.clements@umass.edu
Apple and Peach Crop Insurance Fact Sheets for the 2015 crop year in Massachusetts are available from USDA's Risk Management Agency website:
http://www.rma.usda.gov/fields/nc_rso/2015/2015mapeaches.pdf
http://www.rma.usda.gov/fields/nc_rso/2015/2015maapples.pdf
Note the sales closing date is November 20, 2014. Contact a crop insurance sales agent ASAP if you are interested in insuring your 2015 apple and/or peach crop in Massachusetts. An sales agent locator is here: http://www.rma.usda.gov/tools/agent.html
Current bud stages, May 19, 2014, UMass Cold Spring Orchard.
Each year the UMass Stockbridge School of Agriculture and the UMass Center for Agriculture offer one or more workshop series on topics of general interest to homeowners and small scale farmers. In the past worshops have been offered in fruit tree grafting, pruning, wildflower identification, and cider making.
The new UMass Extension Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Resouce Center is now available. Go to the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug Introduction page to enter the site which has information on ID & Biology, Monitoring, and Management of BMSB.
This week we found 2 cases where a single female SWD was caught in traps, one in Hampshire County, one in Southern Berkshire County.
The new UMass Extension Spotted Wing Drosophila Resouce Center is now available. Go to Spotted Wing Drosophila Introduction page to enter the site which has information on ID & Biology, Monitoring, and Management of SWD. The page will be updated regularly and will soon include mapping data from the UMass Spotted Wing Drosophila reporting network.
Winter Moth (Operophtera brumata): This is a new and important pest of blueberries, apples and other deciduous plants, especially in Southeastern New England. They can severely defoliate trees and bushes and can hollow out fruiting buds. Moths emerge from the soil usually in late November and may be active into January. Eggs hatch in early Spring and larvae feed on swelling buds of many different plant hosts, causing damage in fruit crops.
