Plant & Pest Advisory Vegetable Alert

Rutgers Cooperative Extension

New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station

Plant & Pest Advisory

Vegetable Alert

Date:    6/23/12                                                   Alert Author: Andy Wyenandt
Pest: Late blight has been confirmed on processing tomato in Salem County, New Jersey.

Late blight was confirmed on actively sporulating leaf lesions from an 70 acre processing tomato field outside of Elmer, NJ. All lesions were found on the upper most leaves in the canopy suggesting Late blight was carried in from an outside source. This is the second report of Late blight in NJ on potato or tomato this year.

What is going on with European corn borer?

Two years ago many extension and university researchers were ready to write off European corn borer (ECB) because of a more or less steady decline in the number of adults caught and general reduction in the amount of damage over the previous ten years.  There were several ideas promoted about what had caused the decline.
This year we have caught modest numbers of adults but in some local areas the amount of infestation is very high.  Why?
-Joe Ingerson-Mahar

Higher Temperatures Bring Out Insect Pests

What a difference 20 degrees makes! ...suddenly our traps are filling with insects.
-Joseph Ingerson-Mahar

Vegetable Grafting: Learning How to Graft Tomato and Cucurbits - Now on DVD

From the University of Arizona's Controlled Environment Agriculture Center (CEAC) June 2012 News Splash newsletter.

NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD 

Grafting of vegetable seedlings is used to overcome soil-borne diseases and pests, and to add extra vigor to the plants under various environmental stress conditions. While vegetable grafting in North America is used mainly to increase yields of greenhouse tomato (including hydroponics), there is increasing interest among growers in the use of grafted plants in open field production.

In this DVD, Mark Kroggel, a horticultural technologist and Research Specialist at the School of Plant Sciences, University of Arizona, explains and demonstrates three different grafting methods as well as tips for healing and handling grafted plants. This step-by-step introduction is suitable for beginners and as classroom material to learn a unique propagation technology used for vegetables.

Directed and Produced by Dr. Chieri Kubota, Professor, School of Plant Sciences and CEAC faculty.

Ordering information at http://cals.arizona.edu/ecat/multimedia/video-purchase.html or 1-877-763-5315.

Side note: the Director of the UA CEAC is none other than former south Jersey farm boy and former Rutgers Ag/Bioresource Engineer, Dr. Gene Giacomelli

--Rick VanVranken