Picture it. You planted walnut tree saplings anticipating the first real harvest occurring five to seven years from that moment. But now that your labor is starting to bear fruit, you notice black lesions along the growing nut and the stem. The health of the trees begins to wither.
What started as a pretty picture has become a nightmare.
How did this happen? Unbeknownst to you, a bacterial pathogen overwintered between scales of healthy buds and spread to blossoming flowers and leaves with recent rains. This threat wasn’t on your radar.
As Joe Vassios, UPL technical service lead for specialty crops, explains, this nightmare is preventable with the right measures. However, prevention starts with the right groundwork.
The first step is to make a plan as soon as possible, Vassios said. Mother Nature is unpredictable year to year, and rain is a key ingredient in spreading the bacteria that causes walnut blight. Therefore, it’s best to plan for the worst but hope for the best so you’re not caught off guard.
“Last season, with the hot, dry conditions that we had here in California, walnut blight pressure was lower than we saw in many years,” Vassios said. “So I think that fewer applications probably went out last season or were needed for walnut blight. But with some of these early rains that we’ve had this fall, if this trend continues, you really want to make sure that you have a solid plan in place for managing that walnut blight to protect your trees and protect your yield going into this next season.”
Vassios recommends a rotational program for crop solutions to reduce pesticide resistance in conjunction with the walnut blight prevention plan. UPL’s portfolio provides a variety of options to properly manage this concern.
“More traditional application programs for managing walnut blight include a mancozeb, or UPL’s MANZATE® PRO-STICK™, in combination with a copper-based product such as UPL’s CUPROFIX® ULTRA 40 DISPERSS,” Vassios said. “That’s been effective for many, many years. More recently, there have been some areas where copper resistance has been identified. While it’s not widespread yet, UPL does offer our KASUMIN® product, which is a kasugamycin-based product that can provide great control where that copper resistance is appearing.”
Prevent a nightmare. Make walnut blight one less thing to worry about this upcoming season.
For more information on UPL’s walnut blight solutions, contact your local retailer or UPL representative.
