Strawberry Growers: 2012 Could Be A Bad Year For Anthracnose Fruit Rot
An abnormally warm spring could be favorable for Anthracnose development if temperatures remain high.
This could be a bad year for development of anthracnose fruit rot in perennial matted row strawberries in the Eastern U.S. A warm weather fruit rot disease, Anthracnose is a constant threat in annual or plasticulture strawberry production, but is very sporadic in perennial matted-row production. However, when it does develop in matted-row production, it is generally devastating.
This abnormally warm spring could be favorable for anthracnose development if temperatures remain high, especially with abundant rainfall like we had last year. We had an epidemic of anthracnose fruit rot in perennial matted-row plantings throughout the Eastern U.S. in 1991.
It “popped up” in plantings and on farms that had never seen the disease before. It can move around undetected on nursery stock and never develop in “normal” years. When high temperatures combined with rainfall occur during bloom through harvest, it can explode. This could be one of those years.
Normally eastern growers make sprays through bloom for botrytis fruit rot control and may not make sprays during harvest. If anthracnose is a threat, fungicide sprays to control it are required throughout harvest. Hopefully the weather will return to “normal.”
If it stays abnormally warm, some prebloom applications of Captan fungicide may be a good idea to keep the anthracnose fungus from building up populations on symptomless leaves then attacking the fruit as it develops.
Source: Mike Ellis, professor in the department of plant pathology at The Ohio State University, March 2012 Ohio Fruit News.
Comments (1)
Douglas Speed (Fri Mar 30 13:10:58 2012)
Simple solution. Fight fire with fire. Use the benefical bacteria in Quantum Growth an all natural, non-toxic biological products to prevent and cur anthracnose. Being all natural it can be used up to harvest time. For additional info visit www.douglasspeed.com
