Fruit Program News

  • Winter and Early-Season Fire Blight Management

    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 Available

    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

    Current bud stages, May 19, 2014, UMass Cold Spring Orchard.

    View more photos of bud stages

  • Mass Aggie Seminars

    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.

    Download schedule and brochure
  • Adult Femail BMSB

    New Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (Halyomorpha Halys) Page

    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.
  • Spotted Wing Drosophila on yellow trap

    New Spotted Wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) page

    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 in New England Fruit Crops

    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.

    Read more…
  • Male Spotted Wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii)

    Spotted Wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii)

    Spotted Wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii), SWD, is a recently introduced new species of fruit fly in the United States. It was first found on the west coast in 2008, but has rapidly colonized many fruit producing regions of the country.  It was first found in New England in late summer 2011 and has now been confirmed in Massachusetts (as of July 3) in 2012.
    Read more
  • Winter Moth on blueberry buds (2011)

    Winter Moth (Operophtera brumata)

    Winter Moth (Operophtera brumata): This is a new and important pest of apples, blueberries and other deciduous plants, especially in Southeastern New England. They can severely reduce yields and/or defoliate bushes. Moths emerge from the soil usually in late November and may be active into January.  Eggs hatch in late March or early April and the small caterpillars wriggle into swelling buds of wild and cultivated hosts, hollowing out the interior.  The eggs are thought to hatch at around 20 GDD base 50˚F from March 1 or when Norway Maple buds are swelling.  (Another model predicts egg hatch at 173 GDD base of 40˚F starting Jan 1).  This may come early in 2012 due to unseasonably warm weather in March. To calculate the Growing Degree Days for your location, see http://newa.cornell.edu/
    Read more

  • Northern grapes: Integrating viticulture, winemaking, and marketing of new cold hardy cultivars supporting new and growing rural wineries

    The emergence of cold hardy, Vitis riparia-based wine grape cultivars in the 1990s created a new and rapidly expanding industry of small vineyard and winery enterprises (over 300 wineries, 3,300 acres of grapes, 1300 growers) in more than 12 states in New England, northern New York, and the Upper Midwest, boosting rural economies in those regions.
    Read more

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