WSU Mount Vernon NWREC
16650 State Rte 536, Mount Vernon, WA 98273-4768
360-848-6140 (tel), 360-848-6159 (fax)
WSU Vegetable Pathology Team Newsletter
Hello!
Welcome to the July 2001 edition of Washington State University’s Vegetable Pathology Extension Team. This newsletter follows the team’s July conference call when team members discussed current vegetable diseases, diagnoses and control. Please use this information in your own newsletters and activities.
Photos needed for our website’s new Vegetable Disease Gallery
We now have many excellent photographs of vegetable disease symptoms for our new vegetable pathology team web site photo gallery, but we eventually wish to post additional slides at: http://mtvernon.wsu.edu/path-team/diseasegallery/
We believe this vegetable disease “photo gallery” will be one way you can quickly access and reference images of vegetable disease symptoms. To contribute, contact dainglis@wsu.edu
Need to know about cultural management options & Washington-registered pesticides for home gardens?
Check out the vegetable section of WSU’s Hortsense website. Information about cultural management options and current pesticide recommendations available to home gardeners for Washington-registered pesticides on asparagus, beans, chard, broccoli, crucifers, cantaloupe, melon, carrot, corn, pumpkin, squash, lettuce, onion, garlic, pea, pepper, eggplant, potato, radish, spinach, tomato, turnip and rutabaga can be found at:http://pep.wsu.edu/hortsense/
WSDA websites are now on-line
Washington State Department of Agriculture Pesticide Management Division:
http://www.wa.gov/agr/pmd/
Pesticide recertification course database:
http://www.wa.gov/agr/pmd/licensing/recertification.htm
Register Now for the 29th International Carrot Conference
The conference will be held February 10-13, 2002 at the Holiday Inn Select, Bakersfield, CA. View: http://www.co.kern.ca.us/farm/farm.htm for more information.
Want to know more about economically important diseases of asparagus in the U.S.?
View the recent feature story on APSnetat:
http://www.apsnet.org/online/feature/asparagus/top.htm
Vegetable Diseases/Issues and Places to Find Information
“A Whiter Shade of Pale” – Is this rust or white rust?
In the June newsletter, we focused on differences between downy and powdery mildew. These two diseases are sometimes confused with one another, but actually are distinct. Two other foliar diseases on vegetable crops that may be confused with one another are rust and white rust. Like the downy and powdery mildews, both rusts are obligate parasites and require an association with host tissue for long term survival. However, just as the downy and powdery mildew organisms belong to different groups of pathogenic fungi, rust is a basidiomycete while white rust is an oomycete. This means that different types of fungicides are required for their control. The following comparisons might be useful for distinguishing between the two types of rust. Both types of rusts form pustules which can rupture host epidermal cells and reveal powdery spore masses (hence the name “rust”). Rust may produce up to five distinct fruiting structures and spore forms which appear in sequence (teliospores, basidiospores, pycniospores, aeciospores and urediospores) although many rusts produce only one or a few of these spore types. In contrast, white rust produces sporangiospores, zoospores and oospores. Note that no crop is affected by both, and that white rust affects cruciferous plants primarily.
Visit The Skagit Veg Trials
The Skagit Veg Trials, an annual vegetable trial and display garden, was added to the Skagit Display Gardens at the WSU-Mount Vernon Research and Extension Unit this spring. The aim of the project, led by Dr. Wilbur ‘Andy’ Anderson and sponsored by the Skagit Men’s Garden Club, is to identify the best available vegetable varieties and cultural practices for the Puget Sound maritime climate. Identifying varieties that emerge in cool soils and have a range of maturities – early, mid and late – allows the commercial or home gardener to plant at one time but harvest over a long period.
The project will work its way through the major vegetables over a 6 or 7 year period. This year’s trials include 45 varieties of peas and 185 varieties of corn. Three types of peas are being tested – shell, snap and snow peas. Corn trials include yellow, white and bi-color varieties in each of three sweetness levels – normal sugar, sugar-enhanced and supersweet. About 26 varieties of spinach and 30 varieties of tomatoes are also being tested. All trials are replicated in either time or in plots. The peas are replicated this year in plots. The corn will be replicated in time, that is, the varieties that do the best this year will be tested again next year. Cultural studies this year include metam-sodium fumigation for weed and disease control, and spray blade fumigation to control weeds and diseases in the planted rows.
For directions to the Trials and a list of trial activities, contact Nancy Ligget atliggett@coopext.cahe.wsu.edu
The Puget Sound Fresh web site (http://www.pugetsoundfresh.org) presents descriptions of western Washington farms and the crops they produce for consumers. Farms can advertise for free on this web site.
Upcoming Vegetable Events
Check out the Vegetable Pathology Team’s calender of upcoming events:
http://mtvernon.wsu.edu/path-team/vegpath_team/