4.15.16 Mummy Berry Season 2016 is Almost Here

The mummy berry season for 2016 is fast approaching.

I have had no reports of mummy berry cups yet. I expect with this warm weather, we will have some coming up this weekend or early next week.

On Wednesday, April 13,  there were pinheads in West Rockport, and the plants were getting close to having enough flowers open to be susceptible. On the same day in Appleton, there were no pinheads visible and the plants were not as far along.  I have no other reports of pinheads.  Areas farther south may have cups present, but I do not have any mummy berry plots farther south. If you have a mummy berry plot, please let me know what it is doing.  You can contact me, Seanna Annis, at 207.581.2621 or on the Blueberry Hotline.

The best way to tell if your plants are susceptible yet is to take 10 to 20 stems randomly from different clones in the field and count each flower bud per stem and what stage each bud is at.  If the average number of flowers at F2 is above 40% then you have enough susceptible material to cause damage if the mummy berry fungus infects your field.

Picture of developing flower buds. Flower buds are susceptible to the mummy berry fungus once they have separated enough to look like small crowns.Thank you to those of you who filled out a weather station survey.  We have taken the survey results and tried to place weather stations where they would serve the most people but also provide early and late data for knowing when the season has ended.  Unfortunately, I only have 15 weather stations and I cannot place them in all of the areas I would like.   We have eight weather stations up so far in Knox, Lincoln, Waldo, Hancock, and Washington counties.  I will put up a map of the locations as soon as we get them all out next week.