Here are our weekly observations from the fields and farms around Wayne County from the week of July 11-15.

Vegetable Crops

Probably the biggest development in our area was the presence of cucurbit downy mildew on a path of cucumbers in southern Wayne County. This means there are active infections in Wayne and Medina counties, and likely the surrounding counties. Ideal conditions for continued progression and infection will exist in the coming days. It is important to take steps now to protect your cucumbers and cantaloupes.

Powdery mildew found on a cucurbit plant in a Wayne County field.

Powdery mildew on cucurbits continued to spread rapidly, spurned on by several foggy mornings in the area.

As early plantings of summer squash and other cucurbits are harvested, it is important to practice good sanitation in the fields. Do not allow these areas to become diseased and insect infested, as they will only lead to problems in other areas on your farm. Once you are done harvesting an area, it is best to terminate the crop and either incorporate or remove the residue. 2

Other disease concerns revolved around bacterial diseases on peppers and tomatoes. We started to find some bacterial spot/speck on these crops.

Insect wise, it was an active week. Cole crops are still facing significant pressure from flea beetles and imported cabbage worm. European corn borer was identified in a few pepper plantings. Cucurbit crops saw increased activity from cucumber beetles, squash bug and squash vine borer.

Small Fruit and Orchards

A few diseases like scab and blister spot have started to show up on leaves in apples orchards, otherwise, the majority of any disease pressure has subsided after dealing with several rounds of fire blight outbreaks. Insect pressure in apples has slowed some as codling presence has remained low, however, some orchards are still facing some persistent damage from European red mites.

Some of our oriental fruit moth traps showed a significant flight, with some traps averaging nearly 30 moths per trap. Red mites were still active in the peach blocks as well this week.

The season is wrapping up for some of our raspberry growers, and blueberries won’t be far behind. With blackberries now coming into season, it is still important to be aware of the presence of the spotted wing drosophila, which are still being found in most of our traps. Japanese beetles may also be causing some troubles for small fruit grower, especially those with grape vines. We observed significant defoliation from Japanese beetles on grapes in several areas of the county this week.

Here are our weekly crop scouting observations from the week of July 4-July 8.

Vegetable Crops

The warm temperatures and accumulated heat units have kept our insect pests active and building in population. Cucumber beetles, squash bugs and squash vine borer were all active this week in cucurbit plantings and fields. Additionally in squash, we noted our first sighting of powdery mildew in an area of first planting summer squash.

The warm and sunny days have also led to some challenges with sun scald. Unfortunately, the heavy winds and rains from the storms had pushed plants over, which allowed for the first set of vegetables, such as in peppers or tomatoes, to be exposed to direct sun and extreme heat.

Growers with cole crops may still be battling flea beetle and imported cabbage worms. Significant egg laying from the cabbage white butterflies gives us the heads up to scout our cole crops very closely to watch for hatching eggs and young caterpillars.

Generally speaking, the Japanese beetles have begun their entrance into a wide range of vegetable crops. In some cases, isolated cases of heavy feeding damage may severely damage the foliage and stunt young plants. Frequent scouting can help you make timely management decisions, therefore avoiding significant damage from the Japanese beetles.

Small Fruit and Orchards

European red mites were found in apples and peaches this week, and in a few cases, the populations had reached significant levels, with severe feeding damage present on the foliage. As was the case in vegetable crops, the Japanese beetles feeding on orchard trees and small fruit plants started to cause some significant defoliation.

Spotted wing drosophila were found in all of our traps. Accordingly, small fruit growers should be aware that we are now fully into SWD season.

Fire blight in apples has been our main disease concern to this point. We did note a few cases of apple scab on leaves in some orchards around the area.

Overall, fruit development in orchards and small fruit production areas is coming along nicely and should be greatly benefited by the timely rains.

Here are our weekly observations and notes from the fields around Wayne County from the week of June 20-24, 2022.

Vegetable Crops

Now is a critical time to be monitoring your cucurbit crops for cucumber beetles. Early populations may not seem as evident due to the presence of insecticide in treated seed, however, as the efficacy of the seed treatment diminishes, the cucumber beetle feeding will begin to increase. The threshold for beetles while the plants are in the 2-4 leaf stage is 1 beetle per plant. Once the plant is above the 4-leaf stage, the threshold increases to 3 beetles per plant. The greatest chance for impactful feeding damage and bacterial wilt infection via the cucumber beetle occurs during early season feeding.

Squash bug found in Wayne County on yellow squash. Cucumber beetles feeding in the background. F. Becker, 2022.

Also, of note in cucurbits, the excess moisture and warm conditions allowed for development of some phytophthora cases. If you suspect that you have plants infected by this pathogen, avoid spreading it in your fields by removing and destroying infected fruit and plant material. An integrated approach to managing this disease includes practices such as avoiding excess water, sufficient crop rotations and fungicide treated seed. Additional findings in cucurbits included squash bugs being found this week in an early planting of yellow squash.

An area of yellow squash plants lost due to phytophthora, F. Becker, 2022.

Continue to monitor onions for thrips populations. The recent heavy rain may have prevented populations from building, however, hot dry weather, combined with the increased size and number of leaves can provide the opportunity for thrips numbers to escalate rapidly.

In tomatoes our scouts noted some observations of early blight and Septoria.

Remember to check your crops for any signs of foliar diseases, especially with the amount of soil splashing that took place in the last few weeks. Bacterial and fungal diseases can be spread on the lower leaves of plants when heavy rains splash soil and pathogens onto the foliage. Overall, stress from high temperatures has been evident in a majority of the crops that we are scouting.

Small Fruit and Orchards

Male SWD, Thomas Becker photo, 2022

Female SWD, Thomas Becker photo, 2022.

Spotted winged drosophila have been caught in traps around Wayne County. As we move out of strawberry season into raspberries/blackberries/blueberries, the SWD populations will begin to increase leading to possible infestations in ripening brambles and blueberries.

In apples, we continued to find strikes of fire blight. Conditions have been ideal for fire blight development, although dryer conditions may hinder further development. This week we continued to find aphids in apple trees. Our IPM program identified populations of green apple aphids in several orchards as well as a case of wooly apple aphids. Both aphid species can cause significant damage at this time of year. Accordingly, diligent scouting is a crucial aspect to not allowing either of these aphid species from getting out of hand. The heavy rains likely knocked back some of these aphid populations, but it will be important to monitor aphid populations as dry conditions take hold.

We have had sustained catches (over threshold) of both Codling Moth and Oriental Fruit Moth in apple and peach orchards, respectively. Over the last week, both Codling Moth and Oriental Fruit Moth populations have been trending downward, however, numbers have still exceeded the thresholds.

Now is the time to be managing early season diseases in apples. Scab, rust and powdery mildew are the three main diseases of concern at this point in the season.

Once strawberry harvest is over, it is a good time to consider renovation of the patch. The goals in renovation are to reduce plant numbers by narrowing the rows, remove old foliage (reduces diseases), control weeds, and reduce insect pests. After renovation, regular irrigation and weed control are essential. High yields next year depend on having large, healthy, vigorous plants when fruit buds are initiated in late summer.

We have started catching grape berry moth in our traps.

Here are our weekly observations and notes from the fields around Wayne County from the week of June 13-17, 2022.

Vegetable Crops

The Colorado Potato Beetle larvae have hatched and are now feeding in both potato and eggplant. When approaching plants to look for them, be cautious. When the beetle is startled, they drop to the ground and may be difficult to see. They do significant damage to the foliage and can cause significant reduction in yield. The Colorado Potato Beetle also has a history of developing resistance to insecticides being used as control measures. This has limited our choices for treatment options. The best way to prevent further resistance is to avoid using the same insecticide repeatedly. At the current plant stage for potato, the threshold is approximately 1 beetle per plant. For eggplant, it is 25 beetles per 50 plants.

In summer squash/zucchini, we are seeing an increase in the number of cucumber beetles. The seed treatment on these plants is beginning to reach the end of it’s efficacy. For fall vine crops that have just been planted in the last week or so, that seed treatment should still have a few weeks of efficacy left.

In onions, we have noticed an increase in the number of thrips, in many cases approaching an action threshold. Threshold is 25-30 thrips per plant. This week we also found more incidences of slippery skin which was confirmed by the vegetable pathology lab at OARDC earlier this month. Slippery skin is caused by Pseudomonas gladioli. This bacterium is spread via soil splashing from heavy rains and enters the plant through natural openings or openings from mechanical injury. Given the heavy rains we have experienced in the past week, it would probably be a good idea to get out and check your onions.

Overall, tomatoes are continuing to grow rapidly in the greater Wayne County area, with some plantings of field tomatoes beginning to set blooms. We did have a case of timber rot identified in the West Salem area in field tomato. It is important to practice good crop rotations and rotate out of a crop family completely for at least 3-4 years. A complete crop rotation will help to break up disease and pest cycles. Similar to onions, tomatoes can contract bacterial diseases from soil splashing. If you have tomatoes, it may be worthwhile checking the lower canopy of your plants to monitor the presence of any diseases.

Our IPM pest scouts have continued to find Mexican bean leaf beetles in the green beans this week. Light foliar feeding was observed.

With the warmer weather and plants maturing rapidly, the slug threat has greatly reduced in the last week. Any new transplants should still be monitored for feeding, however there should be less of a slug presence for the rest of the growing season.

Small Fruit and Orchards

This week we continued to find aphids in apple trees. Our IPM program identified populations of green apple aphids in several orchards as well as a case of wooly apple aphids. Both aphid species can cause significant damage at this time of year. Accordingly, diligent scouting is a crucial aspect to not allowing either of these aphid species from getting out of hand. The heavy rains likely knocked back some of these aphid populations, but it will be important to monitor aphid populations as the weather dries out a bit.

In apples, we continued to find a few instances of fire blight. Conditions have been ideal for fire blight development, so it is not much of a surprise to see some cases.

We have had sustained catches (over threshold) of both Codling Moth and Oriental Fruit Moth in apple and peach orchards, respectively. Over the last week, both Codling Moth and Oriental Fruit Moth populations have been trending downward, however, numbers have still exceeded the action thresholds.

With the storms over the course of the last week, it is not unlikely that we will see some yield loss from wind, heavy rains, or hail damage in many of the area’s fruit trees.

Now is the time to be managing early season diseases in apples. Scab, rust and powdery mildew are the three main diseases of concern at this point in the season.

Strawberry leaf diseases may appear unsightly right now, however, now is not the time to be managing these leaf diseases. Once harvest is done and during patch renovation it is recommended that you address these concerns, either with a fungicide or with resistant plant varieties. This is also a critical time to be watching for fruit rots such as Botrytis.

Grapes are currently around the buckshot berry stage. It is still possible to spray for and manage black rot during this time.

For the past few years members of the IPM Program have been working hard to upgrade how insect pest data is displayed to end users such as growers, consultants and other educators, mainly because spreadsheet data is so 1990’s!

Along with the transition from spreadsheet to graphical data, we are beginning to add key points and interpretation to help end users make management decisions about the current pest status. Our goal is to make insect activity trends easier to understand while wrapping in some useful pest management decision points. There might still be a few bugs to work out of the system but overall it should be functioning as intended.

While we don’t have all of the key pests for specialty crops listed, we do have most of the major pests for fruit and vegetables online at this point. If there is a pest you want to see monitored, drop us a note and we’ll see if we can add it. We are still fine-tuning timely cooperator data entry (meaning all data collected may not have been entered into the system for display) and some pests have just begun to be monitored for so trends may be difficult to see. Also, pest graphs with no data are populated with a large “NO DATA” tag in the body of the graph. Along the top of each graph is the county where the trapping data is being collected. Multiple sites in one county are numbered Greene 1, Greene 2, Greene 3, etc.

The new website can be found here: https://u.osu.edu/jasinski.4/pestvisualization/

Below is a screen capture of the new site. If you have questions or comments about the graphs let us know. We hope you enjoy the new interface experience!

This is the second call to all growers to help contribute to our understanding of the general use and application of insect IPM to vegetable crops. OSU supports this effort based out of Wooster College and Purdue University, with any findings being shared with OSU.  If you have thoughts about what is needed or can share what you currently do, that is very helpful information for us to work with.

Dear vegetable producer,

You are being asked to participate in a study, “Insect Pest Management in Vegetable Crops Survey” (Purdue IRB protocol no. 2021-979) by researchers at Purdue University and The College of Wooster. The purpose of this study is to get more information on insect pest management practices and strategies used by vegetable producers in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions. The information provided here will help direct pest management research and extension programs in specialty crop production.

You must be at least 18 years of age to participate. The survey will take approximately 20-25 minutes to complete. The survey is anonymous. The researchers have pledged to keep your data confidential and will only report aggregated results in any published scientific study.

In appreciation of your choice to participate in the survey, you can choose to enter into a raffle for a hardcopy of one of two complimentary spray guides: the Midwest Vegetable Production Guide for Commercial Growers ($21 value), or the Mid-Atlantic Commercial Vegetable Production Guide ($25 value). Instructions for entering the raffle can be found at the end of the survey.

To begin the online survey, click this link.

Participation in this study is voluntary and you may withdraw from participation at any time. If you have any questions, you may contact the researchers:

Dr. Carlo Moreno (First point of contact)

The College of Wooster

931 College Mall, Wooster, OH, 44691

Phone: 330-287-1982

Email: cmoreno@wooster.edu

Dr. Elizabeth Long

Purdue University

901 W. State Street, Lafayette, IN 47907

Phone: 765-496-1918

Email: long132@purdue.edu

Another pest that we are actively monitoring using clear sticky traps and pheromone lures is the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug. This stink bug is known to feed on vegetables, grain crops, small fruit and tree fruit.

BMSB adults on sticky trap

While we are actively monitoring for this pest in eight counties, Adams, Athens, Greene, Seneca and Wayne counties are seeing trap catch increases, mostly related to adults. Late stage nymphs and adults pose the biggest threat to tree crops like apples, with their damage resembling several other types of injury such as hail injury or bitter pit (stink bug surface injury (L), internal injury (R); Celeste Welty).

Stink bug injury on apple, courtesy of Celeste Welty

Soon these adults will migrate from the fields to structures to seek refuge from the cold temperatures as they attempt to over-winter. If you have lived in Ohio for the past few years, you are no doubt familiar with these large brown stink bugs that invade your home or office in the fall.

While we only have established thresholds for this pest in apples, these were established in the mid-Atlantic and have not been vetted in Ohio yet. We would expect these thresholds to work well in Ohio but research has not been conducted to confirm the results. Monitoring strategies for vegetables, grapes and small fruit can be found here: https://www.stopbmsb.org/managing-bmsb/management-by-crop/

The monitoring system in apples requires two traps, one placed at the edge of an apple block and one placed in the interior. When the cumulative weekly total of both trap catches exceeds 10 stink bugs, an alternate row middle spray for BMSB may be justified. The details are outlined in this article: https://www.stopbmsb.org/stopBMSB/assets/File/BMSB-in-Orchard-Crops-English.pdf

Vegetable Crops

Squash vine borer damaged plants.

This week brought about many sightings of squash vine borer larva. The adult squash vine borer moths were actively flying and lay eggs about a month ago. We are now seeing plants that are declining in health and when inspected further, are oozing frass and have stems that look shredded. When we split the stem of these plants, in nearly every instance, we found at least one, if not several squash vine borer larvae. Unfortunately, there is nothing that can be done to reverse such severe damage.

A large squash vine borer found feeding in a pumpkin plant.

Flea beetles are feeding on young cabbage and broccoli, and the cabbage worm butterflies are finding their way into these plantings as well. We are starting to see some damage in peppers from the European corn borer and expect the ECB and CEW numbers in the traps to increase in the next week or so.

Small Fruit and Orchards

As apples and peaches are harvested, do not let your guard down on the late season generations of codling moth and oriental fruit moth. This past week was another week of rising codling moth numbers, and consistent oriental fruit moth catches, although the oriental fruit moth numbers have not gone back over threshold.

Grapes damaged by grape berry moth larvae.

Grapes are starting to ripen, and as the season progresses, we are still finding consistent trap catches of grape berry moth. Although it may be too late for some varieties, you may still be able to protect later maturing varieties with a treatment for grape berry moth.