Flowers opening rapidly: First fire blight infections 30 and 31 March (yesterday and today), antibiotic application necessary; Add fungicides

Southern Virginia entered apple bloom 10 days ago and Central Virginia entered bloom on 27 March. Right after that we have a first one or two infection periods predicted in Winchester (30 and 31 March – if you have very early blooming crab apples), Tyro (31 March), Rustburg (31 March), Timberville (31 March),  in Charlotsville (30 and 31 March), and Westfield – North Carolina (30 and 31 March). EIP values in the NEWA EIP model and significant 112 – 208 and reporting infections with warm wetting event we received yesterday and will receive today. Remember, a wetting event can be heavy dew, rain, or spray water when you apply fungicides (if you did not add antibiotic into the tank). Therefore, since the risks are wetting event dependent, apply your streptomycin in mix with LI700 or Regulaid within 24 h before a wetting event triggering an infection (dark red field and EIP over 100), or if you will apply a spray during the periods when the EIP field is orange and EIP value is above 100. Add fungicides to streptomycin. To determine your next streptomycin spray application, use the type-in spray date function in the NEWA EIP Fire Blight model – scroll down on the page and you will find it – it is below the Wetness Events Table:

In periods of extreme risk for infection for several days continuously, make sure to use this function, as when you enter the spray date, it will re-calibrate the model and it will tell you when next infection will occur and when you must apply the next streptomycin application. With the oncoming extreme warm weather, new flowers are will be opening every day and these newly open flowers are not protected with a previous streptomycin application if they were closed when you applied it the first time. Be very careful to not underestimate fire blight in this way as blocks of 4-7 days during bloom with infection events predicted every day have occurred in previous years and in these cases you need to apply streptomycin almost every second day and to determine exact day to spray you should use this streptomycin date function in the model. Please open the NEWA EIP model available here: https://newa.cornell.edu/fire-blight). Here are prints screens in order: Winchester, Rustburg, Westfield NC, Timberville, Tyro.