By Clint Thompson
Peach harvest season is just a few weeks away for Southeast growers. But before producers start picking this year’s crop, they need to be managing this season’s insect pests. Two come to mind, says Brett Blaauw, assistant professor at the University of Georgia (UGA) College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
“Now that we are really in the midst of the season, San Jose scale, we’re getting into the first stage of their peak crawler emergence. The adults have already developed early in the season, mated and now the crawlers are going to emerge,” Blaauw said. “The crawlers are the most vulnerable stage. This is a really good time to knock them back. I always recommend growers use the horticultural oils during the dormant and delayed dormant times, but if they have missed that and have blocks of issues with scale, right now is a great time to hit those crawlers.
“The other key pest right now is plum curculio. We’ve already seen it down in middle Georgia, but we’re starting to see it in northern Georgia and the Upstate in South Carolina. They are active and they’ll be attacking, even those tiny fruit. The plum curculio females will lay their eggs in those fruit and can cause a tremendous amount of damage. Keep an eye on those. Those are the big ones right now.”
San Jose scale is a tiny insect that has a waxy coating that covers and protects the whole body of the insect. It protects them from the environment and from other insects that would eat them.
Georgia growers have to manage the plum curculios every year. Chemistry rotation is encouraged to protect against insecticide resistance.