5.18.12 Mummy Berry Forecast: Friday, May 18
By Seanna Annis
Hancock and Washington Counties
Mummy berry season appears to be finished in most areas finally. This has been one of the longest seasons of mummy berry cups in the last five years.
From Tuesday, May 15, dried up cups with no mature cups were seen in Ellsworth, Silsby Plain (Aurora), Deblois, in multiple fields in the barrens, Wesley, and Jonesboro. We had numerous infection periods this week as the cups were finishing up. There would have been fewer mummy berry cups shooting spores in this past week, which should decrease the chance of infection.
We had cooler temperatures Thursday night, but none of the monitored fields dropped below 28ºF which is the estimated temperature tolerance for fully open flowers.
Next year, I hope to have more growers tracking mummy berry plots and to have the forecast out earlier in the day with improved weather data analysis.
The weather stations will stay in place for the season and the Maine blueberry weather stations are available on the AgriNET University of Maine Blueberry Disease Model Data Dashboard website.
Listed below are the start times of the infection periods in our monitored fields:
| Site Monitored | Start of infection periods | |
| N. Ellsworth | May 14 | 3:00 a.m. |
| May 15 | 10:40 p.m. | |
| May 16 | 7:20 p.m. | |
| Ellsworth | May 14 | 7:00 p.m. |
| May 15 | 11:00 p.m. | |
| Silby Plain | May 14 | 10:40 p.m. |
| May 15 | 8:00 a.m. | |
| Deblois | Weather station under repair | |
| Montegail | May 14 | 9:00 p.m. |
| May 15 | 7:20 p.m. | |
| Rocky Pond | May 14 | 9:00 p.m. |
| May 15 | 8:40 p.m. | |
| May 16 | 8:20 p.m. | |
| E. Machias | May 14 | 6:00 p.m. |
| May 15 | 10:20 p.m. | |
| Meddybemps | May 14 | 6:00 p.m. |
| May 15 | 12:00 a.m. | |
| May 16 | 8:20 p.m. | |
| Jonesboro | May 14 | 6:45 a.m. |
| May 15 | 10:15 a.m. | |