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.