In today’s Almond Matters, brought to you by Valent, the recent rainfall has increased disease concerns in orchards. After a dry January and February, much of California received varying levels of rain within the last week. Now with bloom wrapping up, the much-needed rain events have increased the potential for fungal infection.
“The moisture in the canopy and petal fall on almonds is a recipe for disease and fungal pathogens. Monilinia, primarily, and that needs to be addressed,” said Todd Burkdoll, Field Market Development Specialist with Valent USA. “If you didn’t have a preventative on before the rain, you definitely need to get something on after the rain to put the lights out on that potential problem that could take out more of the crop. We’d like to save what we’ve got.”
The rains came after a relatively quick and even bloom period for California almonds. Freezing temperatures over the last week also created some issues for growers. Burkdoll explained that a lot of areas were severely hurt by the freezes and growers will be waiting to see the extent of the damage that was caused. Losing some of the crop to freeze events will make disease concerns even more pressing.
“If you didn’t get something on before the rain you need to get something on with a little bit of reach back, that’s why I like Quash. It’s probably the most powerful as far as breadth of activity and specific activity on the number of pathogens which it negatively affects. It stops them in their tracks,” Burkdoll noted. “It’s a good option to go on now after petal fall – post-bloom – to clean up anything that may have come in or is starting to come in fungal-wise. Again, primarily monilinia species; monilinia laxa, fruticola, maybe some of that too. It depends on the temperatures.”
Listen to the report below.