By Clint Thompson
Scouting and correct diagnosis of diseases will be key steps in North Florida watermelon growers managing this year’s crop. Because watermelons can be impacted by a plethora of diseases, producers to know exactly what they’re dealing with and apply appropriate fungicides as quickly as possible.
That’s the message shared by Bob Hochmuth, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Regional Specialized Extension agent in Live Oak, Florida, during the recent Alabama Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association Conference on Feb. 4-6 in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
“For the foliar fungicides, we’re talking mostly about diseases like gummy stem blight, downy mildew, powdery mildew, maybe anthracnose; those are the ones that we’re going to be scouting for, and when those appear, we’re going to be applying either preventative or curative fungicides, and they’re expensive,” Hochmuth said. “Knowing exactly what they have is really important, before they start spending money on these really expensive materials.
“I think we feel pretty comfortable if we get detection early. That’s our mission. We’ve got good materials for most of those foliar diseases.”
Growers can stay up to date with this year’s crop and potential diseases with the weekly update issued by Hochmuth and his colleagues through the Suwanee Valley Region.
“With that weekly update we send out in the Suwanee Valley area, it helps them to at least know, we’ve made our first discovery of downy mildew in the region. That’s the really important one, I think,” Hochmuth said. “They’re all important, but when downy shows up, that’s really important to know.”