Local Horticulture News
Horticulture Zone 5
Horticulture Zone 4
Horticulture Zone 3
We just got word this afternoon that a late blight was found in Lincoln County. The disease was diagnosed by Bruce Watt at the UM Diagnostic lab on tomato plants from a home garden in Waldoboro. The plants were grown from seed and the home gardener did have late blight on both tomato and potato plants in 2009.
Forest & Shade Tree - Insect & Disease Conditions for Maine
Check out the above link to learn more about the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA)
Lily Leaf Beetle Larval Collections 2010
If you grow lilies in New England, and have lily leaf beetles feeding on them, the University of Rhode Island would like your help. Click on the above link to learn more.
Chrysanthemum white rust - Three U.S. chrysanthemum breeding companies have joined with SAF and ANLA to sponsor a free educational webinar for growers on chrysanthemum white rust, and advice on how to avoid it in their 2010 mum crops. See the attachment for more information or to register for a webinar visit www.safnow.org/pestsanddiseases
Basil downy mildew - Recently basil downy mildew was identified on basil plants in a greenhouse in Maine. This destructive disease, first found in the northeast in 2008, produces an abundance of spores and can spread quickly. Growers should look for yellowing on basil plants that may look like a nutritional problem. Upon closer examination plants infected with downy mildew will have purplish gray spores visible on the underside of leaves. For pictures and more information visit http://vegetablemdonline.ppath.cornell.edu/NewsArticles/BasilDowny.html
Hemlock woolly adelgid - Hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) continues its spread in coastal Maine. Adelgid crawlers are still abundant, so if you are living/recreating or working in or near HWA infested areas please bear in mind the risk of spreading the insect this time of year. Check your hemlocks for signs of this pest, especially those within 20 miles of the coast. If you do find HWA, please let us know. To date HWA infestations have been confirmed in the following towns: Brunswick, Harpswell, South Portland, Bristol, South Bristol, Westport Island, Arrowsic, Georgetown, Phippsburgh, Eliot, Kennebunkport, Kittery, Ogunquit, Saco, South Berwick, Wells and York. More information about the life cycle of HWA can be found at: http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/HWALifeStages.htm.
Got Pests? Website - The Maine Department of Agriculture is currently testing its new Got Pests? website. It can be found at www.gotpests.org . Take a little time to look around the site and pass along your impressions and suggestions and if you encounter any technical difficulties. Send your comments to anne.bills@maine.gov by July 20.
Tomato Late Blight - No signs of late blight were found on tomato crops in greenhouses in Maine this year. For an update on the late blight situation in other states and links to new factsheets on late blight and distinguishing late blight from other tomato diseases see the New England Greenhouse Update message posted on June 25 http://www.negreenhouseupdate.info/index.php/june/873-late-blight-on-tomato
Asian longhorned beetle - A small infestation of Asian longhorned beetle (ALB) was confirmed in six red maple trees in Boston, MA over the Fourth of July weekend. The trees located across the street from the Arnold Arboretum, a showplace for trees and their beauty, have since been removed and chipped. If ALB is in Maine, we would expect adults to have begun emerging by this date. If you think you have found ALB, please try to capture and/or photograph the beetle and then contact our office or use the Maine Department of Agriculture on-line report form (www.albmaine.org, right hand column). The Maine Department of Agriculture will be conducting a survey for ALB at Sebago Lake State Park on Saturday August 14. If you would like more information about this event contact karen.l.coluzzi@maine.gov
Tips to Help you
Tick removal
The season is here and the ticks will soon be showing their heads. Here is a good way to get them off you, your children, or your pets. Give it a try. · between toes Apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball. Cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball and swab it for a few seconds (15-20). The tick will come out on its own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away. This technique is much less traumatic for the patient and easier. This is how it works; Insects breath through their skin. This acts to suffocate them .
This is great, because it works in those places where it's sometimes difficult to get to with tweezers:
· in the middle of a head full of dark hair, etc.
Kitchen Tips:
25 Ways to use Coffee Filters
