Mummy berry forecast for April 28th 2011

WALDO, KNOX, LINCOLN, HANCOCK
Mature cups that would be shooting out spores have been present this week in Union, Belfast and Liberty.
Plants were at the susceptible stages in most of these fields. If you have a slower, cooler field and your plants were NOT yet at 40% of the stems with susceptible flower buds on Thursday April 28th, then your field may have escaped most of the recent infection periods this week.

Multiple mummy berry infection periods have occurred in Lincoln, Knox, Waldo and Hancock counties since Monday. The exact timing of the start and end of an infections period depended upon the field.
Infection periods occurred from:
Mon. April 25th 6 to 7pm through to Tues. April 26th 11am to noon
Tues. April 26th 5 to 7pm to Wed. April 27th 6 to 9 am
Wed. April 27th 4pm to Thurs. April 28th morning.

If you have applied fungicide within 7 days of the start of an infection period your plants would have been protected.
If your plants were NOT protected during one of the recent infection periods, you can apply fungicides with 72 hours of the start of an infection period and kill off any fungus that penetrated during that infection period.

Downeast (northern Hancock, Washington counties)
We have found one mature cup in Deblois on Wednesday April 27th, but only pinheads at Jonesboro. The fields in Deblois were not at 40% susceptible stems on Wednesday, but Blueberry Hill farm field was at 70% susceptible stems. If you have a warmer, earlier field than your plants may have been exposed to an infection period in this past couple of days.

We found no germination of mummy berries and the plant are not ready yet at Jonesport, so the wet weather would NOT have created infection periods because the fungus was not present.

There were infection periods through out this region, but to determine if you need to apply fungicides you should check the development of your plants. Please see the last 2 forecasts for information on how to evaluate your plant development.

Possible infection periods if cups were present in your field and the plants were at least 40% susceptible:
Wed. April 27th 2 to 4am through Wed. April 27th noon
Wed. April 27th 4 pm through Thurs. April 28th morning.

If your plants were NOT protected during one of the recent infection periods, you can apply fungicides with 72 hours of the start of an infection period (so by Saturday, April 30th morning) and kill off any fungus that penetrated during that infection period.

If you are using the calendar method for timing fungicide applications you will want to apply fungicides before an infection period when your plants are at 40% susceptible stems.

For recommendations on fungicides and biopesticides to control mummy berry disease please use the Disease Control Guide for 2011, Bulletin 219.