30 Jul Agronomy Update – July 30th

Hi everyone,

I think most people are looking at the forecast hoping for rain, but the short-term forecast doesn’t look very promising.  Many in West Prince were surprised with up to 40 mm of rain last Friday, but those total decreased as we move east across the province, and warm winds on the weekend dried a lot of that moisture up quickly.  It’s safe to say that east of Miscouche there are a lot of acres that need rain ASAP.  Those with irrigation are running them, as soil moisture levels are around wilting point in some fields.

Despite this lack of moisture, the crop looks surprisingly good in my travels, particularly those that have finally been able to close the canopy. There is some lower leaf defoliation happening due to lack of moisture, but early blight/brown spot levels are generally low to moderate.  Insect damage is very field by field, but without many reports coming to me of widespread damage.

We’ll dig into some of the monitoring reports below:

Air Spore Results:

• No late blight spores have been found in PEI or NB.  Given the dry weather (including warm nights) and lack of moisture, risk of late blight infection is quite low at the moment.
• Early blight number remain very low across the Island.  Brown spot spore levels are also low for the time of year and for how hot and dry it has been.
• One location in East Prince spiked high on grey mold spores from the Monday results, but most other locations are recording very low grey mold (Bortrytis) spore counts.  This is not surprising, given the dry weather.

Aphid Alert:

• Aphid number remain around 2.3 per trap, down from the last couple of weeks.
• Monday’s collection identified our first Green Peach Aphid since Week 2. I expect we will see more GPA showing up from now on.
• Colonizing aphid numbers (as a percentage of total aphids) have increased over last week. Producers should keep an eye out for aphid numbers and plan aphicide application as needed.

Comments from the Crop Update Meeting on Tuesday:

• Overall, attendees were pleasantly surprised with how the crop looks; however, some fields are starting to show signs of stress.
• It was noted that upright potato varieties are looking rougher than “bushier” type plants that have filled the rows better.
• One scout noted an uptick of flea beetles and tarnished plant bugs, but not yet at threshold levels for treatment.
• One person noted that early digs on early planted acres are showing signs of common scab. Dry soil at tuber initiation may be a culprit there.
• In general, it is thought that number of tubers per plant is about average.
• Volunteers continue to be an issue in many fields.  Some growers are considering making to changes to rotation crops (ie. terminating forages) to deal with volunteers that haven’t been chewed off by CPB
• The next Crop Update meeting will be held Tuesday, Aug 12^th at the AIC building in Kensington at 2:30 pm. Folks can also join by Zoom.

Spudchat is Back:

After a bit of a hiatus, I’ve uploaded a new episode of SpudChat, and I hope to have a few more to share with you before the end of the summer.  In this episode, I talk to Jonathan MacLennan and Brandon MacPhail about how their crops are looking so far this year, as well as any new projects they are working on this year.  You can listen here or wherever you normally download your podcasts.

That’s it for this week.  Hopefully we get a few showers tonight and later this week!  Have a great rest of the week.

Ryan