By Clint Thompson
North Florida watermelon growers must remain diligent with their irrigation applications as harvests continue across the Suwanee Valley.
Bob Hochmuth, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Regional Specialized Extension agent in Live Oak, Florida, highlighted in his weekly email the importance of irrigation, especially with some fields picked just once or not at all.
“The situations where you really have, based on where we are right now, things that you can’t afford to cut back on, one of them would be irrigation. This time of year, with warm temperatures and a heavy fruit load on the crop, with this drip irrigation system that we utilize here, you need irrigation every day. In most cases you need irrigation multiple times in the same day,” Hochmuth said. “The root system is very shallow. It’s in the top 12 to 18 inches and the plants will pull all of the available water out of the top 12 to 18 inches in one day. You really have no way to cut back on irrigation without getting hurt very quickly.”
Hochmuth also cautions producers against running a pivot over the field. The risk would be increasing downy mildew disease.
“We have already seen this happen this year and it has frequently happened in past years. The overhead irrigation events provide the moisture needed for downy mildew to rapidly spread,” Hochmuth wrote.