Reducing Potential for Plastic Burn

Though not as susceptible
as peppers, tomatoes,
eggplant and squash trans-
plants can suffer plastic
burn on bright sunny, high
temperature days.

If you are using plastic mulch for weed suppression and water management, and less so for earliness because you're planting later in May and on into the summer months, black is probably not the best option in southern NJ, especially if the weather predictions indicate higher than normal heat patterns. Actually, it only takes a day of bright sun and high temperatures soon after transplanting to cause plastic burn.
--Rick VanVranken

Pest Alert: European Corn Borer (ECB) in Sweet Corn

For more than a decade, a general decline in ECB adult moth populations and larval infestation rates have been seen in most crops. Generally entomologists in the eastern US are attributing this long decline in ECB to increased production of BT field corn which would be a dead end host for the pest. An adult moth population bucking this trend is widely observed this spring 2011. The reasons are unclear but it is a fact. Growers are advised to scout all whorl and pre-tassel fields.