Monday, July 23, 2007

Earlystar and bacterial spot

As promised, I picked Earlystar peach today. It is very good for a very early yellow peach -- I think superior to PF-1. You can see some data here. I also observed a fairly raging case of bacterial spot, which I knew was coming. Bac spot is evident on Shiro plum, Countrysweet peach, and Honeyckist nectarine. The latter two are Zaiger sub-acid peaches. Having been bred in California, they have not been selected for bac spot resistance. But they are real sweet stone fruit, and have done well for us otherwise. Control of bacterial spot needs to begin early -- see the fact sheet from West Virginia University. I can expect considerable early defoliation now, and some fruit defects, although the Countrysweet peaches still look pretty good. I have posted a gallery of pictures I took today from these three stone fruit cultivars. I am not 100% sure all the symptoms are bac spot, but am reasonably sure most are. Sometimes nitrogen deficiency can look like bac spot, but given the cultivars we are dealing with here, it's the latter. Someone PLEASE remind me next year I need to get on a bac spot control program!

1 comment:

FarmerMo said...

Jon
I like that table of additional comments, though I missed it the first time thru.
This blog is good stuff!
So good, that now I need to do my own.....
Keep it up.