May 12 Berry Bulletin

In this bulletin:

• Crop Update
• Berry IPM workshops
• Ontario Crop Protection Hub

Strawberries: After a warm week crops have started to move along a bit faster and growers are busy planting. Row covers are starting to come off in early areas where there’s bloom in June-bearing strawberries. Once these row covers come off watch for aphids, mites, tarnished plant bug, and clippers weevil. Over-wintered day-neutral fields have bloom and green fruit.

Planting is beginning with both day-neutral strawberries and June-bearing strawberries. Apply 50 kg of nitrogen with phosphorus and potassium or as a side dressing 2-3 weeks after planting.

Aphids: strawberry aphids are beginning to be found in June-bearing fields. Stay vigilant with aphid control through the season to manage strawberry viruses. Dimethoate (Cygon/Lagon/Diamante), Exirel, Beleaf, Sivanto Prime, Cormoran, or Assail/Aceta can be applied before bloom, or Sivanto Prime or Beleaf during bloom. Assail and Beleaf will also control TPB. Malathion, group 3s (Mako, Decis, Matador) and Rimon do not control aphids in strawberries.  Do not use Admire at this timing; Admire cannot be used pre-bloom or during bloom. Apply post-bloom only.

Cyclamen mite: Although not much damage is evident yet active cyclamen mites have been found in June-bearing fields with a history of this pest. Now is a good time to apply Agri-mek before bloom if you find cyclamen mite in your field. Look for stunted plants with crinkled, toughened leaves (Fig. 1), and check the youngest, folded leaves for mites. If mites or damage are found spray the entire field or the entire variety.  Agri-mek or Vegol Crop Oil can be applied.

Fig 1. Cyclamen mite damage causing toughened, crinkled leaves and stunted plants.

Apply Agri-mek at 225 mL/ha in 750-1000 L water/ha with a non-ionic surfactant at 0.1-0.5%, where permitted. Watch the pH of your spray tank. It is very important to get thorough coverage- slow down and use a high volume. Apply Agri-mek during slow-drying conditions to improve uptake into the leaves.

Timing can be challenging: Make sure to keep a 10-14 day gap between Agri-mek or oil applications and chlorothalonil (Bravo or Echo) or captan applications. Do not apply sinbar after applying Agri-mek. Wait 5-7 days after Agri-mek before applying sinbar.

Disease management: Now is a good time to apply Bravo or Echo for botrytis control on June-bearing strawberries to reduce disease inoculum and help with overall disease management later in the season before bloom. If there’s time apply 2 applications, 10 days apart. Make sure to get these applications on before bloom with the 30-day PHI.

Once bloom is present applying a group M product multiple times during bloom is important for resistance management and broad-spectrum disease control.

Blueberries: Blueberries are moving along quickly and growers are getting ready for bees as bloom is beginning.    

Mummy berry: Blueberries can be infected with mummy berry shoot blight at the bud burst stage. If you have a history of mummy berry, control is required from this stage through to early bloom, prior to rain. Infection occurs after wetting periods of 6 or more hours depending on temperature. See the fungicide options on the Ontario Crop Protection Hub.  

Use fungicides from different groups to control cane diseases such as phomopsis and anthracnose twig blight, including broad-spectrum fungicides like Bravo or Echo. Once bloom arrives, use fungicides that control both anthracnose and botrytis.

Raspberries: Primocanes are beginning to emerge and floricanes are leafing out. Ferbam is no longer registered for use on raspberries. Tanos can be used prebloom for early season disease control.

The time to control raspberry crown borer is quickly approaching. Diazinon is only registered for raspberry crown borer control, with 1 application per year. Apply Diazinon when new growth is about 10cm above ground- do not apply after first bloom. Apply in a high water volume to drench the crown and base of plants. Alternatively, Altacor can be used in the fall.

IPM workshops:

• Blueberry IPM workshop: May 16, 9:00-11:00 am. Zoom only. Click here to register.

Ontario Crop Protection Hub: The Ontario Crop Protection Hub is our new source for crop protection information: Ontario.ca/cropprotection. There are short training videos available on YouTube on how to find rate, PHI, REI, and max app information: Ontario Crop Protection Hub- How to find rate and comment information for specific crops and pests. If you have questions about using the Hub reach out anytime!