Spotted wing drosophila made an early appearance this year. I found some June strawberries with SWD larvae on July 2nd. I knew SWD could attack June strawberries, but I hadn’t seen them in June strawberries before this year. If you are considering spraying insecticides against SWD now is a good time to start spraying. See […]

April 30, 2020 Winter moth caterpillars are growing so slowly in this cool weather! They started hatching in Kingston about March 22, 50% hatched in early April, and 90% hatched in mid-late April. Most of the caterpillars I see are still so tiny. Nearly all winter moth caterpillars are first instars – so they haven’t […]

April 23, 2020 There will be another Zoom Twilight Meeting with UMass Fruit Team on Thursday April 30 at 5:30. I think it worked pretty well last time. You’ll need to pre-register for the meeting and this will be emailed to you next week. You can see recordings of the April 9th meeting at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKCU0_6fvuSPLtWvsmDhfwg/videos […]

April 14, 2020 Hi Fruit Growers, Hope everyone made it through yesterday’s storm alright. I know many people are still without power. Yesterday’s warm rain created an apple scab infection period. If your apple trees were not protected with a fungicide before  yesterday’s rain you should apply a fungicide with kickback activity soon. Scala and […]

April 2, 2020 Hi Fruit Growers, Hope everyone is holding out alright. I’m happy temperatures cooled down for most of March, though apple green tip occurring before April is never good news. It looks like we are headed into some wet weather tonight and tomorrow (4/3), potentially causing the first apple scab infection period of […]

Hi Fruit Growers! The sun is shining today – that’s my good news for the day.           Some early apple flower buds have cracked open and green tip is just around the corner. Now is an excellent time to apply a copper fungicide to protect against fire blight. New York state’s Scaffold weekly newsletter that […]

Winter moth update, February 28, 2020 With such a warm winter sending out winter moth information earlier rather than later seems like a good idea. I don’t expect winter moth caterpillars to be a problem in 2020, so you may want to stop reading right now! For those of you still interested in winter moths, […]