Extreme Heat on Fall Greens Plantings

An excerpt from Plant & Pest Advisory
- Rick VanVranken
Lettuces, greens, and herbs (cilantro, parsley, dill) planted for the Fall season in the greater Vineland area have gone through a week of 100 degree weather. If they managed to germinate and not get cooked by that heat (watering 3x per day didn't help, maybe hurt, as soil temps remained in the 90s even after watering), they've now potentially had scattered heavy rains saturating fields every 2-4 days since then potentially washing away fertilizers and herbicides. At this point, the  best recommendations to make sure surviving plants will make it to harvest include additional sidedressings of fertilizer (especially N) and application of Ridomil Gold or Quadris to try to stave off the spread of Pythium that is present in some plants.