Mummy berry forecast Monday May 7th 2012

Mummy berry symptoms
You may start to see mummy berry disease symptoms on your plants in the next few weeks.  Even with very good control,  a low number of dead, infected leaves or flowers may still occur.  The spores produced on these dead leaves and flowers will not be able to kill new flowers or leaves. These spores are carried to healthy flowers and will infect the fruit to produce the mummified berry.  Typically, the spores have already started to be spread to healthy flowers by the time you see these infected areas, so fungicide applications to control this stage of the infection are not recommended.

Waldo, Lincoln and Knox counties.  
The mummy berry cups are probably almost done in these areas.   In wet, late fields there may still be cups present, but in most fields they should be finishing up.  This means that in most fields the threat of mummy berry infection will have passed. 

Southern Hancock county
Mummy berry cups are probably finishing up in most early fields.  They may still be present in late or wet fields.

Some fields close to large water bodies, such as our N. Ellsworth field, have experienced infection periods over Saturday and Sunday night due to fog.   If your field tends to get fog overnight, it may also have experienced infection periods this weekend.

The rain, which is forecast to start tomorrow and possibly continue to Friday, may cause infection periods in later, wet fields this week.

If you have applied fungicide on or after Thursday May 3rd, your plants will probably  be protected through out these coming infection periods.


Northern Hancock and Washington counties
Mummy berry cups are still actively producing spores in these areas.  I expect mature cups producing spores to continue to be active through out this week. 

 The rain, which is forecast to start tomorrow and possibly continue to Friday, will cause infection periods this week.

 If you have applied fungicide on or after Thursday May 3rd, your plants will probably  be protected through out these coming infection periods.