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  • From: "Dalew Farms" <dalew AT phonenet.ca>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Insect Pressure
  • Date: Thu, 31 May 2012 05:22:00 -0400

Here in mid-northern Ontario we are seeing tons of insect pressure.  The past two seasons have been much hotter and drier than normal and I believe that is the reason they are building up...also the most recent winter was pretty soft also.  This year has also been hot and dry again...so far.  I've been here for 7 season, and last year we had more bug problems than all the other 6 previous years combined, and so fart his season is looking as bad or worse than last year. 
 
Flea beetles are much stronger than we've ever seen them.  It used to be, even last year, that altho bok choy, chinese cabbage and arugula would be decimated by flea beetles, they would pretty much leave our cole crops alone and we didn't see much problems.  This year our early batches of cole crops were so bad that a big percentage of plants have been killed!  We have tried  Safers insect soap, but it didn't seem to do much.  We tried Surround and Mycotrol and altho it seemed to help a little, there is still way too much damage to live with.  (Someone was asking about Mycotrol, and I should point out that our application of Mycotrol was done with a backpack sprayer, and only directly over the row of plants...I wonder if Mycotrol might work better if done with a field sprayer and/or covering all the ground in a field, not just the plants!?!?)  Any thoughts on the pros and cons of using rotonone dust? 
 
Last year we seen spider mites for the first time, or at least at levels that would cause any damage for the first time.  Lost our first batch of cucumber transplants last year before I picked up on them, and after that we found that safers soap worked well whenever we noticed many spider mites, we had troubles with them in cukes, squash transplants and on any beans, green, yellow and any dry beans. I'm ready for those this year (sort of) and we put surround + mycotrol  on our cucumber transplants right after they went to the field...they have beeen there for 5 days so far, and I"m not 100% sure what to think of the control with that.  When scouting I have found some red spider mites, but not as many as at peak last year.  (altho either I'm not good at scouting for them, or they are just really, really hard to actually spot!)  However, the cukes are still looking like they have transplant shock a little instead of taking off and growing....so if that doesn't change soon I will be spending extra time scouting, and possibly spraying safers soap for spider mites. 
 
In the last 12 months I've learned more about bugs than in the rest of my farming career! 
 
Dave
 
PS -  Really, really, really need a rain here!
 
 
 
 
Dalew Farms
Web: www.dalewfarms.ca
E-mail: dalew AT phonenet.ca
Phone: (705)594-1823
Fax: (705)594-1834
10781 Hwy 64, Lavigne Ont
P0H 1R0
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2012 4:14 PM
Subject: [Market-farming] Insect Pressure

Anyone else seeing many more pests this spring?  Asparagus beetles are at least 10X what I experienced last year and we have an infestation of cucumber beetles in the high tunnel.  In past years, we haven't had near as many cucumber beetles in the house as outside, but this year it seems to be the opposite.

Andy


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