Tree Fruit Pathology Lab at Virginia Tech
1. Apple Scab and Marssonina Leaf Blotch were visible in the Shenandoah Valley apple orchards this year. As the fungi that cause these diseases overwinter in the dead leaf litter on the orchard floor, you can reduce apple scab ascospore inoculum dose by 50-70% and …
On 29 August 2022 we detected Marssonina Leaf and Fruit Blotch in a classic training system orchard of ‘Ginger Gold’ in Winchester, VA. The orchard was well protected until harvest, but after fruit were picked, disease moved in, and infect and yellowed some leaves. This …
First signs of bitter rot disease on fruit of apple cultivar ‘Golden Delicious’ have been found on 12 July in Winchester at AREC’s experimental Block 30 (Fig.1). Rot started from the fruit side (Fig. 1). We found that bitter rot lesions were almost always on …
Apple bitter rot is favored by rain events following the warm to hot weather periods like we had in the last 15 days. We also had a recent rain event above 2 inches (Wednesday, 22 June) when fungicide residues from a recent cover spray are …
By Dr. Srdjan Acimovic & Dr. Fatemeh Khodadadi Apple bitter rot disease was a widely present problem in apple orchards in 2021. This disease is caused by different fungi from Colletotrichum genus and is favored by warm, wet and humid weather conditions during …
1. Fire Blight symptoms are visible from natural infections in Central and Northern Virginia. If 1 to 5% or more fire flight flower clusters and shoots (strikes) are visible now, this means that you have an ongoing active infections taking place on actively growing shoots …
AHS AREC in Winchester has a new Research Specialist position open in the Plant Pathology program. I would appreciate it if you could share it with any interested candidates, or post it to any local advertisement boards, papers, or e-mail lists, which would help it …
1. Sooty Blotch and Flyspeck (SBFS) of apple are caused by a large group of fungi which grow superficially on waxy cuticle of apple fruit. Usually, flyspeck caused by Zygophiala jamaicensis shows first and then the sooty blotch appears, which is caused by a complex …
All the major apple fungal diseases in the Shenandoah Valley are visible, except apple scab. This morning I found first fresh rust (Fig. 1, 2) and powdery mildew (Fig. 3) infections of this season on unsprayed ‘Ginger Gold’ and ‘Pink Lady’ trees here at AREC. …
(I) In our research trial at AREC we detected today first fire blight symptoms on 17 May on ‘Fuji’ flower clusters and shoots. We inoculated whole ‘Fuji’ trees with fire blight bacterium Erwinia amylovora on 23, 24, and 25 April (late April heat wave) at …