Brown rot of stone fruit: cause, symptoms and control
Three hours of wetness at 24 C infect the blossom. Latent infections decide the harvest months in advance, and 156 products are only 26 active substances.
Crops
Plum (18)
Diseases (4)
Phytophthora, or crown rot, in fruit trees
Phytophthora, or crown rot, is a serious problem for agriculture worldwide, because beyond the crop it destroys the planting itself, which in tree fruit takes years to build again.
Bacterial canker of stone fruit, Pseudomonas syringae
The bacterium that manufactures the frost wounds it then invades through. The knife test that separates infectious from non-infectious gummosis, the nematode complex, why copper hydroxide works and copper oxide does not, and the entry point most often missed in young trees.
Plum crop protection: the pests and diseases that decide the crop
Every pest and disease of plum that matters, with the figures that set the timing. The generation dates come from the official Greek pest-warning bulletins for Imathia and Pella and are cross-checked against published research. The 491 authorised product entries by target, the annual programme by growth stage, and why the timing of pruning is itself a plant-protection decision.
Pests (5)
Spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii) in cherries
The serrated ovipositor that lets it attack sound fruit, up to 13 generations a year and 300 eggs per female, why males go sterile at 30 °C, and why traps detect but never control.
The goat moth, Cossus cossus: the pest that costs trees rather than a crop
The larva eats the inside of the trunk for two or three years, and the tree fades with stunting, chlorosis and small leaves, the same picture as Phytophthora, Armillaria or a nutrient deficiency. Identification of adult, larva and egg, the multi-year cycle, why it returns to the same trees, the distinction from the leopard moth, and what pheromone traps are actually good for.
The brown marmorated stink bug, BMSB, Halyomorpha halys
Two overlapping generations a year, 538 degree-days from egg to adult, and a chemical toolbox that keeps shrinking. Greek monitoring data from Imathia and Pieria, the native egg parasitoids already at work, and where the samurai wasp stands today.
The Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata
It attacks half-ripe and ripe fruit, which is then lost. In northern Greece it does not strike with the same intensity every year, and the reason lies in how it overwinters. Host range, the life cycle, the number of generations, monitoring with traps and what the traps can and cannot tell, dispersal distance, and the three control tools.
Capnodis tenebrionis, the flat-headed root borer of stone fruit
The flat-headed root borer kills apparently healthy trees, with the damage done below ground. Biology, a degree-day model for timing the intervention, why drip irrigation needs adjusting, and what the experimental data show: control of the adults comes from combinations of modes of action and application, not from a single active substance.
Other (1)
Fertiliser and organic matter calculator
Three calculations made every day by eye, and for that reason wrong. How many kilograms of fertiliser a nutrient target needs, what was really applied over the season, and how much manure it takes to lift the organic matter of the soil.