Willie Kirk, Chris Long and Phill Wharton...The 2009 season has been challenging for many growers in the state. Several thousand acres will not be harvested in areas throughout Michigan. This can be whole fields or parts of fields. The appearance of a new strain of late blight has also complicated matters regarding the integrated management of late blight for next season.

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Late blight came in with a vengeance last summer. It caused severe tomato and potato losses, hitting home gardeners and organic farmers and larger commercial growers.

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Your crops are vulnerable! Hail, wind, drought, flood and more can threaten your crops and your livelihood. Learn how crop insurance and other programs provide protection for crop loss. This workshop is free for growers.

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This is the final set of articles for the 2009 season of the Vegetable CAT Alert newsletter. Click here for an index of articles on topics covered this year. Educators and specialists have worked hard to inform readers about current issues and crop production throughout the last few months.

We will continue to publish timely articles to the Vegetable CAT Alert web site. Not signed up for our email notification? Send an email to catalert@msu.edu with your full name and note that you wish to subscribe to the vegetable edition. You can also sign up to received RSS feeds when new articles are posted. Look for the bright orange RSS feed logo on the right side of this page.

We love to hear feedback from our readers. Do you have a comment or suggestion? Please send it to catalert@msu.edu. Indicate whether you are referring to our fruit, vegetable, field crop or landscape edition.

Thank you. - Joy Landis, editor and Andrea Buchholz, asst. editor

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Dan Pavuk...There are a number of caterpillar pests of tomatoes in Michigan, but certainly the most well known and largest in size are two species of hornworms: the tomato hornworm, Manduca quinquemaculata, and the tobacco hornworm, Manduca sexta. The caterpillars, or larvae, of these two species are called hornworms because they possess a prominent “horn” on the hind end (see Images 1 and 2).

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Fred Warner...Potato early-dying disease (PED) is a complex with the lesion nematode, Pratylenchus penetrans and the wilt causing fungus, Verticillium dahliae, usually implicated as the causal agents. Both organisms are pathogens of potato but when present together, they often interact to produce more significant yield losses than they would cause individually.

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Darryl Warncke...Fall is the time of year when harvesting activities are beginning to wind down, but it should also be the time to reflect on the past year and begin planning for next year. The following is a brief listing of items to consider.

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Bill Steenwyk...The various vegetable crops have, of course, responded differently to this season's particular environmental conditions. One common element to nearly all vegetable producers, however, has been the very low level on insect infestation. After an unusually cool summer, September has been kind to many West Michigan vegetable producers. The dry, warm weather has helped some crops catch up on maturity and kept many potential disease problems at bay.

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Dan Pavuk...This has been an interesting season for vegetable production in Southeast Michigan! In terms of weather, this was one of the coolest summers on record. The cooler temperatures slowed development of vine crops, sweet corn, and tomatoes, but more typical temperatures and higher humidity levels in August helped these crops mature.

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Jeff Andresen...This past Monday (September 21), showers and thunderstorms associated with the weather disturbance that recently brought extended heavy rain and flooding to much of the south and Ohio Valley ended an extended period of mostly sunny, dry weather across Michigan. Many areas had been dry since August 30. Forecast guidance is now suggesting some major upper air changes during the upcoming week leading to a cooler, more unsettled weather pattern.

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Tom Zitter...Keith Perry, a colleague in Cornell’s Plant Pathology department, brought home some infected potted tomato plants from the Lowes store in Ithaca, New York (Tompkins Co.) on June 23. Plants are severely infected with late blight (Phytophthora infestans) with the symptoms indicative of the more virulent genotype of the pathogen.

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