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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] asparagus beetles

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  • From: Willie McKemie <mf AT austinfarm.org>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] asparagus beetles
  • Date: Wed, 7 Apr 2010 06:58:55 -0500

On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 12:25:09AM +0000, cjmaness AT juno.com wrote:
> After one of the worst winters Oklahoma has seen, we are now having a MAJOR
> problem with asparagus beetles. I have honestly never seen so many beetles,
> eggs, and damage in 15 years of growing asparagus. Right now the wind is
> blowing about 40 mph so trying to spray is pointless.
> We started picking last Friday, and haven't picked a marketable stem yet.

I'm 300-400 miles south of you; we've been picking asparagus for about
4 weeks. No unusual bug trouble, just the occasional chunk taken out
of a stem. I wonder how far south asparagus beetles come?

I do have a new malady: stems are shriveling early in their shelf life
while stored in plastic bags. It is not correlated with picking time
of day, area of the field, maturity of the stem, or anything else I can
think of. Except color; only green, no trouble with purple.

Other than that, we're having a great asparagus crop. Past years, we
would be picking 20-30 lb/day. Now, it is 50-80. That's on top of a
very good Fall harvest last October-November. All that due to generous
moisture.

40 mph is a bit excessive for spraying. I sometimes use an air-blast
sprayer; it does very well in more moderate winds, just spray from the
up-wind side only.

--
Willie, ONWARD! Through the fog!
http://counter.li.org Linux registered user #228836 since 1995
Debian3.1/GNU/Linux system uptime 27 days 45 min minutes




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