By Clint Thompson
North Florida’s watermelon crop sustained some damage from storms last Friday evening. There was minimal impact across the region, though some fields experienced hail damage, according to Bob Hochmuth, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Regional Specialized Extension agent in Live Oak, Florida.
He reported in his weekly email that growers with heavy damage applied fungicides (mostly chlorothalonil) quickly. A broad-spectrum fungicide like chlorothalonil or mancozeb is recommended.
“The first front that came through was mostly just rain on the northern part in Hamilton County, and then all of a sudden it blew up another front that came through. That was the front that had the hail in it. It was a lot more widespread from north to south,” Hochmuth said. “But not everywhere got hail. There are a lot more places that did not get hail than probably got hail or at least relatively a small number of fields that got damage to any significance.”
Weather patterns like low humidity and drying conditions help heal damaged tissue quickly as well. That started this past weekend and is expected to continue this week.
“It was cool at night; low humidity. We’ve had a little bit of breeze and nice, warm temperatures during the day. You take the combination of those factors, and that’s what you want for repairing any torn damage, torn tissue,” Hochmuth said. “We have that going in favor us getting this stuff repaired. In all honesty, the first two or three days is when that’s going to occur, which we had Saturday, Sunday and (Monday).”