Vegetables

 

Vegetable Insects -  Joanne Whalen, Extension IPM Specialist;  jwhalen@udel.edu

 

Lima Beans.
We are starting to see a significant increase in corn earworm egg laying, larval counts and pod damage. When possible, fields should be scouted twice a week to effectively time insecticide applications. Controls are needed if you find one larva per 6 foot of row. In many cases, two applications may be needed to control newly hatched larvae. If you are using Lannate, the rate  will depend on the larval size at the time of treatment. If worms are small, 1.5 to 2 pts per acre will be adequate. However, if the worm size is mixed at the time of treatment, 3 pts/acre will be needed.

	Photo taken from Vegetable Insect Management, Foster and Flood, Meister Publishing Company, 1995

 

Peppers.
With the increase in corn borer and corn earworm activity, peppers should now be sprayed on a 5-7 day schedule for insect control. Lannate will be the best choice to control corn borer, corn earworm, fall armyworm and aphids. Remember that Orthene does not provide effective earworm control.

 

Snap Beans.
Be sure to watch for corn borer larvae boring into the petioles and stems on small plants. Although corn borer blacklight trap catches in Maryland and Delaware have not been extremely high, we are catching high numbers in pheromone traps and some consultants are catching well over 100 per night in their traps. If you notice an abundance of corn borer moths laying eggs in fields before the bud stage, be sure to check plants for flagged leaves and infested petioles. An additional application of Orthene may be needed before the bud stage if you start to see small larvae in the petioles.   Processing snap beans should be sprayed at the bud and pin stages with Orthene for corn borer control. At the pin spray, a material like Asana or Capture will also be needed for corn earworm control. After the pin spray, fields should be sprayed on a 4-day schedule with Lannate or Capture until harvest. Be sure to check the Crop Pest Hotline for the most recent trap catches in your area.  Fresh market snap beans should be sprayed on a 5-7 day schedule with Lannate from the pin stage through harvest.

 

Sweet Corn.

Fresh market silking sweet corn should be sprayed on a 2 to 3-day schedule throughout the state for earworms, corn borer and fall armyworm.

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 Retail Produce Market Opportunity - Ed Kee, Extension Vegetable Crops Specialist, kee@udel.edu

 

The owner of McQuay’s Market, at the foot of Rehoboth Avenue near the Canal Bridge in Rehoboth, passed along this opportunity.  They are interested in a farm family to run a first rate retail produce operation.

 

McQuay’s Produce

“A Business Opportunity at “McQuay’s Farmer’s Market at the Beach”

 

McQuay’s is the first storefront in Rehoboth, operated as McQuay’s since 1937.  The store has been cleaned and brightened considerably by the new owners.

 

The building is now being made into a Farmer’s Market with multiple food vendors.  Produce has been in operation for two years.  Captain’s Ketch Seafood, a first rate seafood store from Easton, Maryland, joined for the 1999 season.

 

We are now interested in selling the two year old Produce operation for $10,000, which includes a dairy cooler, cash register, scales, and other supplies of the trade.  Annual rent for the building is $6,500, which includes use of display areas and a large walk-in cooler.  A lettered “McQuay Marketplace” pickup truck is available under a separate deal.

 

In short, everything necessary to carry on this business is already in place.  The new owner can take advantage of two years of customer building as the only Produce Market inside Rehoboth.  Marketplace marketing has included the development of a mailing list for nearly 3,000 homes with kitchens inside the town of Rehoboth.

 

Call Paul Lovett or Cyndi Scott at 610-433-7996 (Monday thru Friday) 215-275-9050 (cell phone).

 

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Laurel Farmer's Auction Market Report

August 19, 1999 – August 25, 1999

 

Quantity	Produce	Price
15,389	Cantaloupes
	Athena	0.25-0.90
	Eclipse	0.25-1.10
2870	Sugar Babies	0.30-0.85
69	Crenshaws	0.35
523	Honeydews	0.30-1.20
306,359	Watermelons
	Crimson Sweet
	15 up	0.50-0.90
	20 up	0.60-1.50
	25 up	0.75-1.25
	Sangria
	15 up	0.50-1.10
	20 up	0.60-1.00
	25 up	0.75-1.55
	All Sweet
	15 up	0.60-1.00
	20 up	0.60-1.55
	25 up	0.70-2.00
	Star Bright
	15 up	1.00
	Royal Majesty
	15 up	0.60
	Stars & Stripes
	20 up	0.60
	Mardi Gras
	25 up	1.00
	Seedless	0.50-1.40
123	Peppers
	Green	3.00-10.00
	Red	4.00-11.50
	Bell	5.00-7.00
	Jalapeno	2.00-6.50
20	Eggplant	3.00-10.50
1547	Tomatoes
	Red	7.00-17.00
	Pink	5.00-20.50
48	Cucumbers	5.00-13.50
238	Squash
	Yellow	3.00-13.50
	Green	3.00-16.00
12	Potatoes
	White	3.00
	Red	5.00-6.00
25	Sweet Corn Dz.	1.30
11	Stringbeans	8.00-25.00
31	Lima Beans	10.00-24.00
6	Okra	2.50-5.50
26	Peaches	7.00-13.00

 

 

Vegetable Diseases  - Kate Everts, Extension Vegetable Pathologist, University of Delaware and University of Maryland;  everts@udel.edu and Phil Shields University of Maryland; ps136@umail.umd.edu

 

MELCAST for Fungicide Application on Watermelons.

Do not use MELCAST if there is a disease outbreak in your field, it is a preventative program.  Below are the EFI values from weather stations located on the Eastern Shore August 18– August 25.  Any questions please call Phil Shields at (410) 742-8788 or e-mail: ps136@umail.umd.edu

 

EFI Values for 1999

Location	8/18	8/19	8/20	8/21	8/22	8/23	8/24	8/25
U of M, LESREC                     Salisbury,MD	3	1	3	5	2	1	1	3
Wootten Farms, Galestown,MD	2	0	4	3	2	1	0	0
Mark Collins, Laurel, DE	3	0	4	5	2	1	1	2
Vincent Farms Laurel, DE	2	1	4	4	2	1	1	3
D C Farms, Bridgeville, DE	2	0	3	4	2	1	1	0
Balvin Brinsfield, Vienna, MD	1	0	2	3	1	1	1	0
Charles Wright, Mardela Springs, MD	2	2	5	5	2	1	1	3
U of D, REC Georgetown, DE	3	2	5	4	2	1	1

 

Watermelon Fields should be sprayed with a fungicide when 30 EFI values have been accumulated by the weather station nearest your fields.  Add 2 points for every overhead irrigation.  After a fungicide spray, reset your counter to 0 and start over.  If a spray has NOT been applied in 14 days, apply a fungicide and reset the counter to zero.  The first and last day above can be partial days so use the larger EFI value of this report and other reports for any specific day.

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Field Crops

 

  

 

Field Crop Insects – Joanne Whalen, Extension  IPM Specialist ;  jwhalen@udel.edu

 

Soybeans.

Economic levels of small earworms have been found in double-crop soybean fields (both barley and wheat beans) in Kent and Sussex counties. No controls should be applied until 1/3 of the worms are ½ inches in size and the first signs of pod damage are detected.  If leaf feeding is significant before pod feeding is detected, a treatment may be needed if defoliation exceeds 15% during the pod-set and pod-fill stages. The treatment thresholds are 3 earworms per 25 sweeps in narrow row beans or 5 per 25 sweeps in wide row beans. A pyrethroid or Larvin will provide the most cost-effective control.

 

 

Soybean Flowering - Bob Uniatowski, Extension Associate- Field Crops; bobuni@udel.edu, Richard W. Taylor, Extension Agronomist ; rtaylor@udel.edu

 

Many people are wondering what effect the drought has had on soybeans.  A quick walk through a number of the variety trials showed that for full-season (single-crop) soybeans planted in May or very early June, flowering has been completed by maturity group III beans.  Yield potential from this point on will be determined by the ultimate size reached by beans already set.  This can account for a change in yield by as much as one-third if growing conditions are ideal during pod fill.  For maturity group IV varieties, most varieties had finished flowering so again yield potential from here on out will be determined by increases in average seed size.  Many group V varieties have not finished blooming so the ultimate yield potential with respect to the number of pods per plant (and thus, seeds per plant) has not been set.  With adequate moisture and good growing conditions, yield potential of these varieties may be excellent.

 

For double-crop beans, we found flowering was occurring on varieties in all maturity groups.  Again, if favorable growing conditions continue, yields will be good to excellent if stands are adequate.  The two primary factors affecting double-crop beans are how good a stand was obtained and whether frost will hold off long enough to mature the beans.  If frost does not occur until the average first frost date or later, most double-crop beans should not be affected by this factor.  If stand establishment is in question, take stand counts in several locations across a field and compare that to your expected or target stand.  Beans can compensate some for inadequate stands although double-crop beans have the least compensation potential because of the very short vegetative growing period.

 

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Estimating Soybean Yields - Richard W. Taylor, Extension Agronomist ; rtaylor@udel.edu

 

Heat, drought, soybean cyst nematodes, pod worms, spider mites, and other adverse stress factors can reduce yields in some fields to the point where growers question whether the fields are worth harvesting.  The decision to harvest is an economic one.  If a grower can recover the variable costs of harvest, then the field is worth harvesting.  Using custom rates as a guide for estimating the variable cost of harvest, a grower must combine 4 to 5 bu/A or about $22 per acre to cover these costs.

 

How do you estimate soybean yield?  Variability in bean size, number of beans per pod, height of pod set, combine cutting height and efficiency, number of flat or unharvestable pods, plus other factors make estimation difficult.  To get a handle on potential yield, follow the following steps.

 

Step 1: Measure a length of row equal to 1/1,000 of an acre based on the average row spacing.  See Table below.

 

 

Step 2: Count the number of plants in that length of row and multiply by 1,000 to get #plts/acre.

 

Step 3: Choose two plants and count the number of pods per plant and average the numbers to get #pods/plt.

 

Step 4: Insert the above numbers in the equation below and complete the math.

 

(#pods/plt) x (#plts/acre) x 2.5 seeds/pod ÷ 3,000 seed/pound ÷ 60 lb/bu = __bushel/A

 

Step 5: Repeat the above process several times across the field and average the results.  The wider the range among the estimated yield levels (wide swings indicate that the field is very variable) the more counts you should make to get a reliable estimate of yield potential in a field.

 

An alternative method allows you to adjust for seed size.  Complete Steps 1 to 3 above.  In place of the equation listed in Step 4, calculate the average number of seeds per acre as follows:

 

#seeds/acre = (#pods/plt) x (#plts/acre) x  2.5 seeds/pod

 

Next, divide the #seeds/acre by the number of harvestable beans per bushel based on your best estimate of the seed size.  Use the Table below.

 

 

 

When yould you estimate soybean yields?  Using the first method that assumes the beans will be in the medium large to large category (3,000 seed/lb), yield estimates can be made anytime after full seed when the beans have grown large enough to fill the pod cavity at one of the four uppermost nodes with a completely emerged leaf (R6 stage of growth).  The second method depends on examining mature beans and estimating the average seed size.  This method should be used later in the season after the crop has reached full maturity and begun to dry down (R8 stage of growth).

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                    WeatherSummary

Week of August 19 to August 26

Rainfall:

1.30 inches: August 20, 1999

0.51 inches: August 25, 1999

Readings taken for the previous 24 hours at 8 a.m.

Air Temperature:

Highs Ranged from 87°F on August 26 to 71° F on August 21.

Lows Ranged from 72°F on August 26 to 56°F on August 23.

Soil Temperature:

78 °F average for the week.

(Soil temperature taken at a 2 inch depth, under sod)

 

Web Address for the U of D Research & Education Center:

http://www.rec.udel.edu

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Compiled and Edited By:

Tracy Wootten

Extension Associate - Vegetable Crops

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Cooperative Extension Education in Agriculture and home Economics, University of Delaware, Delaware State College and the United States Department of Agriculture cooperating, John C. Nye, Dean and Director.  Distributed in furtherance of the Acts of Congress of May 8 and June 30, 1914.  Is the policy of the Delaware Cooperative Extension System that no person shall be subjected to discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, disability, age or national origin.