By Clint Thompson
Drought continues to be less of a problem for most of Alabama, as evidenced by the latest release of the U.S. Drought Monitor on July 30. However, with the recent rains comes an uptick in disease pressure for the state’s vegetable crops.
Ed Sikora, professor and Extension plant pathologist in the department of entomology and plant pathology at Auburn University, provided a disease update during his interview with AgNet Media.
“I’ve been traveling quite a bit, but I know that we had 50% chance of rain every day and these pop-up thunderstorms here in the last week or two. I guess it’s good in a way and bad at the same time. I expected them to be worse than they have been, but in the last week or so, I think I’ve seen them tick up a bit,” Sikora said.
“Tomatoes, and it varies across the state, but I’ve seen some fields damaged by bacterial spot. We have a lot of problems with tomato spotted wilt virus, the resistance breaking variety up in North Alabama or type vectored by thrips. I was just talking to our entomologist, Paulo Cremones, (recently) about options growers might have for this year and next. That’s becoming just a major issue for us.
“I mean, watermelons are pretty much done past July 4, but I was out in the field the other day that was getting hit pretty hard with gummy stem blight. But again, I would imagine that’s past prime for melons this time of year. I’ve started seeing some virus pressure on things like peppers, and I haven’t seen much in cucurbits yet. But with the rain, we might see less virus pressure on some of these crops to keep the aphids populations down.
“But I did start seeing some plants affected by virus. Which virus it is, I wasn’t sure. We weren’t able to test it at that time, but especially if we move into later in the summer, you’re probably going to see more virus pressure if things dry down a bit. As we move into August, September, I think things like downy mildew could become a problem especially if (conditions) stay moist.”