We were thankful for the small shot of rain we received over the weekend (0.5” total across two days). Some locally isolated areas received 1.5 to 2.0” while others barely saw 0.1”, but overall, our region is still very dry, like the rest of the state. Daytime temperatures have been staying in the mid to upper 80s, with maybe three or four days in the last month that were over 90° coupled with cooler nighttime temperatures have made for relatively pleasant working conditions for the month of June in far southern Illinois.
Day-Neutral Strawberries: Within the hydroponic production tunnel at DSAC, we continue to harvest our three, day-neutral strawberry varieties, but finally had to make an insecticide application to keep spider mite populations under control. We elected to wait a bit before starting cucumbers and also to split the total number of plants into two planting dates, the first during the second week of May and the second will be around the first week of July. Other demonstration plantings within the hydroponic tunnel include multiple varieties of bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, and herbs along with small specialty melons, green beans and lettuce.
Tomato harvest: We began harvesting tomatoes from our research plots within the biological insect control project last week (June 12). For this project, collection of yield data will focus more on identifying and quantifying the amount of fruit that has been damaged from insect pressure compared with overall marketable fruit. With this first round of harvest, we have seen several worm-damaged fruits from that early flight of armyworms last month.
Weekly Bt sprays are continuing as tomato hornworms are now being seen during scouting. We noticed a bit of zippering, which is commonly seen due to pollination issues early in the season. The continued cool nighttime temperatures may prolong this physiological disorder longer into the harvest season. Some cracking has been noted and can be attributed to grower error, variety, and fluctuating temperatures. We will begin to harvest bell peppers this week as well.
Photo: Ripe tomatoes harvested from research plots at DSAC. Photo by B. Aly. 2023
Bronwyn Aly (618-695-2441; baly@illinois.edu)