September is National Preparedness Month - Are you Ready Ag?

Fire, flood, feed contamination, foot-and-mouth disease. Farm and ranch disasters can come without warning. Is your crop, livestock or poultry operation secure? Is it biosecure?

A team of Extension professionals from across the US came together to develop an educational tool to assist farm and ranch managers become better prepared for any disaster The tool is called ReadyAG—Disaster and Defense Preparedness for Production Agriculture.

Vegetable & Herb Disease Control Research at RAREC

- For Full Program click Read More -

Sept. 7, 2011; 5:00-7:00 p.m.:  A chance for growers to view the various research plots at the Rutgers Agricultural Research & Extension Center, 121 Northville Road, Bridgeton, NJ (RAREC) and to ask questions.  Shuttles leave every 15 minutes from the parking lot at RAREC for viewing of the following research sites:  Pepper variety Phytophthora screen, Red Bell Pepper variety evaluation, Downy mildew control on vine crops and basil, Parsley disease control and several others.  Dr. Andy Wyenandt will be available to answer questions.

Wesley Kline

Crop Disaster Reporting

With this past week's heavy rains and flooding in some parts of NJ, farmers with crop damage from weather should contact their local USDA Farm Service Agency (FSA) office to help them make a more accurate assessment of damage. Once a certain level of damage is reported in an area, a disaster declaration can be sought so that funding may possibly be made available in the future. Producers should also consider crop insurance and it is sometimes required to be eligible for some FSA programs. To locate the local FSA office covering counties in your area see http://www.fsa.usda.gov/nj

Michelle Infante-Casella, Agricultural Agent

Vegetable Alert: Cucurbit downy mildew widespread in NJ

Pest: Cucurbit downy mildew widespread in New Jersey
Found: Cucurbit downy mildew has been confirmed on pumpkin in northern New Jersey and is now considered a significant threat to all cucurbit crops in the state and region.
Crop(s) at risk: all cucurbit crops in New Jersey.
Potential impact: Significant losses will occur if not controlled properly


What growers should do:

• Control of downy mildew begins with regular scouting, recognizing symptoms and weekly preventative fungicide applications. Now that cucurbit downy mildew has been detected in a cucurbit crop other than cucumber, all cucurbit growers in the region should be scouting on a daily basis and applying downy mildew specific fungicides in their weekly maintenance programs.
• All abandoned cucumber and summer squash fields should be sprayed with gramoxone or disced under immediately after last harvest to kill the foliage! Abandoned fields left unattended after use will only serve as a source of inoculum for other fields once downy mildew makes its way into our area.
• Please see the 2011 Commercial Vegetable Recommendations Guide for specific fungicide recommendations
• To track the progress of cucurbit downy mildew in the eastern US and to keep up with reports of Downy mildew from other states please visit North Carolina State University’s Cucurbit Downy Mildew Forecasting Center at http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/pp/ cucurbit/.
• If you suspect downy mildew on your farm, please contact your county agent or Andy Wyenandt (856) 455- 3100 ext 4144.

Alert Author: Andy Wyenandt 

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.

Forage Radish Cover Crop

There has been new interest in using Forage Radish (Raphanus savitvus var. longipinnatus) also being called "tillage radish" as a fall/winter cover crop in our region. Planting should take place in Mid-August and no later than early September to get maximum growth. Plantings can also be established as early as July if fields are ready. The cleaner the seed bed, the better stands and the deeper roots will form. Claimed benefits from this crop are: help improve soil structure and reduction of soil compaction, weed suppression, building organic matter, fertility recycling, reduced nitrate leaching, erosion control and increasing water percolation in soil. Seeding rates for drilling seed are 8-10 lbs/acre with broadcast rates 12-14 lbs/acre. Aerial seeding has been successful with rates of 14-16 lbs/acre. Plants do winter kill at temperatures in the low 20s. Plant tissue will decompose rapidly from the freeze-thaw winter conditions with little residue left by March. Research is being conducted in NJ starting this summer to look at planting dates for forage radish.

Michelle Infante-Casella
Agricultural Agent

Downy mildew found on sweet basil in southern New Jersey

Downy mildew has been confirmed on sweet basil near Vineland, NJ in Atlantic and Cumberland Counties. These are the first confirmed reports of basil downy mildew in New Jersey this year.


Crop(s) at risk: all basil in New Jersey and surrounding region.

Potential impact: Significant losses will occur if not controlled properly

What growers should do:

Control of downy mildew begins with regular scouting, recognizing symptoms and weekly protectant fungicide applications. Now that Downy mildew has been detected in NJ all basil growers should be scouting on a daily basis and should add a labeled downy mildew specific fungicide to their weekly fungicide program. Phosphite fungicides (FRAC code 33) have shown the best efficacy in trials at RAREC. Both ProPhyt and K-Phite have downy mildew labels under herbs. Actinovate (OMRI- approved) is also labeled for downy mildew control.

Please remember, all abandoned basil fields should be sprayed with gramoxone or disced under immediately after last harvest to kill the remaining foliage! Abandoned fields left unattended after use will only serve as a source of inoculum for other fields.

If you suspect basil downy mildew on your farm, please contact your county agent or Andy Wyenandt (856) 455-3100 ext 4144.