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

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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