In today’s Almond Matters, brought to you by Valent, springtime monitoring plays a critical role in the overall success of an orchard. As rainy weather patterns dissipate for the season and temperatures start to heat up growers are advised to keep a close eye on what is going happening on their farms.
“There’s a lot going on right now in terms of weed control, making sure that your weed control programs are done, that you’re on top of your disease programs, that you’re on top of your other pest monitoring programs and observations in general,” said Tino Lopez Valent, Field Market Research Representative.
Monitoring efforts during spring will help to mitigate issues that could become more problematic later, as there is still a long growing season left. Lopez noted that growers should consider several different things when performing springtime monitoring of orchards including “pests, disease, their history, looking at their history on what needs to be done in that orchard, irrigation certainly.”
Many growers that may have been limited in their sanitation efforts and are already experiencing pest concerns will often conduct ‘May-sprays’ to try and ward off the problem before it exacerbates. “May-spray kind of cleans up anything that may be getting started and we want to keep the populations down so that we don’t build up a lot of pressure later in the season when it’s easy to accumulate degree-days,” said Lopez.
Diligent monitoring for pests such as Peach Twig Borer, Oriental Fruit Moth, and particularly Navel Orangeworm will better prepare growers for what course of action will be necessary. “A lot of growers will monitor their traps and if they’re finding a lot of eggs or a lot of adults if they’re using the pheromone traps, they’ll do a May-spray to kind of slow things down and drop down the population so that they don’t build up,” Lopez said.
Listen to the report below.