By Clint Thompson
Scouting remains the best management strategy that specialty crop producers can implement during the growing season. It provides protection against pests and diseases and can also prevent growers from applying unnecessary sprays, an important benefit for farmers in an era marred by high input costs.
Mathews Paret, associate professor of plant pathology at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), discusses the importance of this tactic, especially when compared to growers who don’t do it.
“There is one key aspect to making the right choice and that is scouting. Growers can work with Extension agents or crop consultants and scout aggressively and consistently. They can collect samples and get it to a lab or Extension agent who can look at it and confirm the disease and make the choices immediately. Those producers would have an amazing benefit compared to producers who may not be doing this as consistently,” Paret said.
Paret confirmed earlier this month that two cucurbit diseases were already observed in fields in North Florida; angular leaf spot and gummy stem blight. If growers are not scouting regularly and miss and opportunity for early detection, it could cost them yields and lead to even worse problems.
“It will also have huge ramifications on the ability to maintain the canopy. In the case of cucurbits, watermelons especially, losing the canopy is a huge problem. You want to maintain the canopy during the fruit maturity stage,” Paret said. “Once the picking starts, you want to maintain the canopy. If the canopy is lost because of any of these diseases due to wrong choices at certain times, the fruit could be exposed to the sun, which could also create a lot of sunscalding, fruit quality issues.”
Variability in weather patterns should influence producers to be in their fields as much as possible. Paret recommends that growers scout their fields at least twice per week. Scouting will also protect producers from themselves. If a disease is not present, there is no need to apply expensive fungicides.
“Costs and impact of using a fungicide chemistry when the target is not present is going to have huge ramifications on the cost structure,” Paret said.
