Mummy berry season is finishing
Mummy berry cups have dried up and will be gone in the Midcoast areas. In most Downeast areas the cups have dried up and are almost gone. Cups that were seen in Blueberry Hill Farm in Jonesboro, May 10th, are dried up and new pinheads have not been seen. With this past warm weather, the plants and fungus have developed quickly.
There were some possible Monilinia infection periods in the Downeast area over this past week. If you had a late field with fungicide applied before May 7th you may have had some infection.
The Monilinia infected leaves and flowers are starting to show up in fields. As the flowers and leaves develop the disease starts to appear. It starts with the midvein of the leaves blackening and then brown tissue spreading from the middle until the entire leaf is dead. Flowers killed by mummy berry disease typically die before they open. I have found most dead flowers at bloom are killed by mummy berry blight and not Botrytis blossom blight. Botrytis blossom blight kills flowers that are almost open or open and will produce black hair that stick out the dead flowers. if you do not see any of these black hairs on your dead flowers then your flowers were killed by mummy berry.
At this time, unless you have a very late field, there is no point in applying fungicides to control mummy berry. Infection will have occurred the past week or up to three weeks prior. There is also no point in applying fungicides to control Botrytis blossom blight unless you are sure you have this disease. It is an infrequent problem and does not often occur in the same fields it infected in the past.
If you want to put out a mummy berry plot this August, please let me know. We had less 6 to 7 plots that were looked at this year. This is a very low number for how large the blueberry growing area. More plots in your area allows me to give a more accurate report in your area.
Finally, I apologize for my mistake in previous posts mentioning F3 is the first susceptible stage of the plants. It is F2 that is the first stage that is thought to be susceptible as I have said for years. I apologize if anyone was confused by my mistake.
Seanna
