[Carl Russell]

Just received this from NOFA-VT

Dear growers and gardeners,

We’re so sorry to bring the news that late blight has been confirmed both in Hadley, Massachusetts and in Waldoboro, Maine.

The strains of late blight we have had in New England in the past were intolerant of hot weather. However, the strain we saw last year in Vermont and present throughout NE seems to tolerate warmer conditions. Pathologists are suspecting this warmer weather strain is the one reappearing this season. It is likely it is coming from infected overwintered tubers. The recent scattered thunderstorms and unsettled weather are likely contributing to the outbreaks and spread of the disease.

Wet weather – especially afternoon and evening rain with morning fog, which allows the foliage to stay wet for more than 6 hours – is perfect for spore production, which can spread the disease.

Commercial growers should scout diligently, and watch the weather. Ann Hazelrigg at UVM recommends preventative spraying of tomato and potato crops. Nu Cop 50 WP and Champ WG are copper fungicides approved by OMRI, and have the Agricultural Use Requirement box on the label, so farmers with employees can use these materials. Please read the label and wear proper personal protective equipment.

For home and community gardeners, we do not recommend spraying copper fungicides. Please maintain practices that help the plant foliage dry out faster. Prune off suckers, remove excessive foliage, and even consider removing plants if they are over-crowded. ATTRA recommends compost tea sprayed as a protectant, but plan to spray in the morning on a sunny day so the leaves have time to dry out. Biological sprays, like Serenade, that put beneficial organisms on the foliage may also be helpful to gardeners.

Not sure what late blight looks like? Cornell’s Long Island Horticultural Research and Extension Center has high-quality photos of infected tomato and potato plants. Be sure to scout your tomato and potato plants rigorously and often.

If you suspect late blight, please send a sample of several leaves of the suspect foliage to the UVM diagnostic clinic immediately for confirmation. It is extremely important to get lab diagnosis in order to accurately track the movement of this disease.

Send your samples to:
Plant Diagnostic Clinic
Jeffords Hall
63 Carrigan Drive, UVM
Burlington, VT 05405

Until late blight is found in Vermont, home and community gardeners can send tomato and potato samples that may have late blight to the Plant Diagnostic Clinic for free -usually this costs $15. Please look at the photo links to late blight in potatoes and tomatoes before sending in your sample, and please visit the Clinic website for directions on how to prepare your sample.

If late blight is confirmed on your plants, destroy them immediately. Late blight can only survive on living tissue. Once the plant is dead, late blight dies too. Remember that one late blight lesion can produce 100,000 to 300,000 spores per day.

Potato tubers are infected with late blight when spores wash off plant foliage and wash through the soil to the tubers. Commercial growers should mow infected potato foliage and wait two to three weeks before harvesting. Tomato fields should be plowed under. Growers can also clip off tomato and potato foliage and put it under tarps in the sun to kill it. Once the foliage is dead it can be composted, but plan to use this compost on different crops or flowers, as several other tomato disease persist in the soil and cool compost–like early blight and Septoria leaf spot. Rotate out of tomatoes and potatoes next year.

Gardeners should clip off tomato and potato foliage and put it in a black garbage bag in the sun to kill the plant tissue. You can take the bag to the landfill, or compost dead plants per our instructions above. Leave potato tubers in the ground for a few weeks to let their skins toughen before harvest.

If potato foliage is mowed or clipped off immediately when late blight is found, your potato tubers should be saved from this disease. If you find some infection in your tubers, cut it out and kill the infected tissue by freezing it before composting it, so that infected volunteer potatoes will not sprout from your compost pile. Potatoes exposed to late blight can be consumed and sold, but they should not be saved for seed.

Please alert the NOFA office if you find late blight in your garden or farm so that we can help spread the word.

Thank you for your vigilance.

With fingers crossed for dry weather,

Wendy Sue Harper, Ph.D.
NOFA Vermont Vegetable and Fruit Technical Advisor
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Carl

[Carl Russell]

The landscape auction is getting some good state-wide attention. Made it into the Burlington Free Press.

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20100718/NEWS02/100717004/Vermont-landscape-auction-links-city-and-country

[Carl Russell]

Jim, I agree entirely. Two years ago I buried a mare that was nearly thirty. I bought her in 1987, when she was between 6-11 years old. I worked her in the woods regularly, up to 2 months before I put her down. She was a very easy keeper and always had a lot of energy, so even working with a 5-6 year old mare she was still a producer.

I have been working a younger team now, both 9, and it is clear to me now why woods teams should be younger, but it is hard not to work an old horse who knows the rope, and whom the teamster knows like the back of his hand.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Tim Harrigan;19753 wrote:

It looks quite clean. How did you clear the under brush? Did you chip the tops and spread them over the surface? Stumps are right at ground level?

Tim if you look at the pictures I posted on Page 3, you can see that there is a chipper head on that excavator. He justed mowed through all of the underbrush and tops, and ground down the stumps to the soil all at once. The action of the chipper head spreads the residual all over the area as he goes.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

It is just a progression of work across an area that I have cleared over the last couple of years totaling about 4 acres. The Brontosaurus worked through all of the top-wood and berry bushed in the cut area. It took him about 18 hours to complete the task. In the foreground is a corral I use for pigs. We raised them there last summer through winter, and will be moving them back next week. We will create perimeter fences and will allow the pigs to work across the area throughout this season.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Mowing was finished this week, now to move the pigs out there.

[Carl Russell]

Additional items have surfaced this week.

There is a parts machine for a #9 mower, and an open gear New Idea two horse mower. $50 each.

Brand new 3-ply leather d-ring traces, (4) $300

No commitment on the manure spreader yet.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Isn’t there a clip of Cy driving cattle in that movie?

They just don’t make’em like the old New Englanders anymore!

[Carl Russell]

We expect the stumps to rot fairly quickly as the cutting head makes a rough, almost shredded, surface that will such up water pretty well. I also have 10-15 year old stumps, but they were cut off above ground level, these are ground to soil level. We will have livestock on there right from the get-go, so I expect compaction will prevent the sink-hole affect.

yes we expect to lime the soil, but we will wait a few years to see how the woody debris breaks down first.

The hourly rate is $200/hr, and as far as I am concerned it is by far the least expensive way to go. Although there will be some lag time while the woody debris breaks down, consuming nutrients, I hypothesize that there will be more organic material, more soil life, and less erosion which I think should more than offset the alternative.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Hector and Hugo. We are all set on a small training yoke, and Timber is building himself a 5″(the need for that is a way off). Furthermore I tend to spend much more time with them at this stage just working in halter, one at a time, reinforcing voice and whip commands. The yoke in my mind is secondary until they are actually big enough to pull something around, 1-3 months.

We’ll keep you updated, and I think he’ll have them at NEAPFD.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

After three hours of work.

Next move when he is all done is to move the pigs on for the summer. They will root in small paddocks, and by the 1/2 acre I will drag with chain harrows and plant pasture seed mix. Over winter livestock there next year and see how it goes from there.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Brontosaurus moved on to the site last week.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Les Barden has extensive blue print plans drawn up that you can buy from him at a nominal price. 603-332-0082

Carl

[Carl Russell]

Cool guys.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

I use deer hair and have never seen such a welt. Deer hair pads will get soaking wet in the extreme heat and still not cause problems.

I’m inclined to say it has more to do with collar fit than the pad, or the heat of the day. Harrowing can be pretty rough work, and if the collar is too big, the bouncing could cause the collar to shift.

I will also go along with Mitch. It very well could have been a fly bite, or other injury, that was aggravated during work.

Is it sore to the touch? Have you ever noticed a sore in that area before?

Carl

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