Blogs and Related Links

Once this rain gets out of here and we can stand up in wheat fields we need to be considering our weed control options and applying early season fertility. Fall tiller production is necessary for optimum yields to be accomplished. 15 to 30 pounds of preplant or at planting nitrogen (N) is usually sufficient to […]

There are tons of available wheat varieties that you can choose from. If you go to our state wide variety testing site you can view their performance at all of our experiment stations. The UGA College of Agriculture tested many varieties from Rome to Tifton, and the data for 2024 can be viewed Here. Luckily […]

On September 16th, Clay Pirkle, with the Georgia Federal-State Inspection Service will be speaking about the peanut grading process. Clay hopes to share information for peanut producers to help minimize deductions when peanuts are delivered to area buying points. The program start at 6:00 p.m. at Peach County High School. Please contact a young farmer […]

Peach evaluation is winding down in 2024 with few edible fruits on trees in variety and seedling blocks at the USDA Byron Station. 2024 was a special peach cropping year for breeding at the station. First, peach fruit set was incredibly heavy on a majority of seedling, selection and cultivar trees at the station, at […]

The USDA-ARS stone fruit program at Byron, GA has released two new early season peach cultivars named ‘May Joy’ (Fig. 1) and ‘Cardinal Joy’ (Fig. 2). ‘May Joy’ requires ~650 chill hours and produces yellow-fleshed, clingstone fruit that typically ripen approximately a week before ‘Flavorich’ and 2-3 weeks before ‘Carored’ in early to mid May […]

Unfortunately, after a year of limited yield, yet minor pest activity, this season is already becoming an interesting one. I have had several reports of thrips causing considerable “silvering” damage (see example below). With the severity and extent of the damage we have seen in certain places, I just wanted to alert everyone to this […]

As I reported in my last blog post, the pecan market is puzzlingly dismal. Despite the loss of 1/3 of Georgia’s pecan crop to Hurricane Helene, and an overall 2024 supply (US Crop, Mexico, and Cold Storage) forecast to be lower than that of 2023, growers are being offered shockingly low prices for their crop. […]

The American Pecan Council recently contracted with Land IQ to complete an analysis of pecan losses due to Hurricane Helene using satellite imagery. The APC and Land IQ worked closely with UGA for ground-truthing and observational information related to damage in the affected areas. This gives us the potential for a much higher degree of […]

The Georgia Pecan Growers Association recently held a meeting with USDA-Risk Management Agency to discuss the details of Hurricane Helene’s damage and what that means for growers regarding Tropical Storm and Hurricane Policies. Some great information came out of that meeting and we all learned a lot. This morning I saw an excellent blog post […]

The below information was compiled by Guido Schnabel (Clemson University), Bill Cline (North Carolina State), and I to give a recipe of sorts for Neopestalotiopsis management with fungicides after planting this fall. It does not address spring applications, but you will need to incorporate remaining applications of fungicides at that time. Whether or not Neopestalotiopsis […]

See below for a good design for a strawberry sprayer, courtesy of the University of Arkansas. Good coverage is important for all diseases, but with Neopestalotiopsis, you really want to saturate the plant with fungicides. This may be helpful for some.

See below for additional information on Neopestalotiopsis and actions you might take to mitigate the issues at hand. Dr. Mark Hoffman comments on several items of interest — especially finding sources of good plants. https://strawberries.ces.ncsu.edu/2024/08/update-neopestalotiopsis-neo-p