- New York Twilight Meeting Shows Results of Various Trials
- By Susan Womersley
New York Correspondent
- In early October, the Capital District Vegetable Program (CDVP) of the Cornell Cooperative Extension hosted their fall twilight meeting to discuss preliminary results of various trials that were conducted at the Valatie Research Farm in Valatie, N.Y.
Topics covered by Ted Blomgren and Chuck Bornt of the program included winter squash, potato, sweet corn, heirloom tomato, no-till pumpkin and organic cucumber-squash systems trials.
In the tomato trial, 12 varieties of tomatoes were included in the late blight variety evaluation. Sources for the fruit tested came from Cornell, Johnny’s Selected Seeds (First Lady) and North Carolina. Results showed that almost all varieties developed little or no sign of the disease. Tomato resistance to late blight raised many concerns from the farmers present that “super-resistant” varieties were lacking flavor. They found that consumers wanted “grape” tomato taste in regular market tomatoes and that by making tomatoes “bullet-proof,” as one farmer put it, flavor was being sacrificed.
The winter squash trials included: Acorn, Butternut, Delicata, Specialty Acorn, and Sweet Dumpling varieties. On May 30, 2002, 600 pounds of 15-15-15 was spread and black plastic mulch was laid on 6.5-inch centers. Plants were seeded earlier in the month and transplanted on June 11, two inches apart. The plots consisted of 15 plants and were replicated twice for a total of 30 plants per variety. The data included in the preliminary reports were from Replicate 2, harvested on Sept. 26. No pesticides or additional fertilizers were applied during the growing season. As with all trial plots, drip irrigation was applied weekly or as needed. Fruit was culled for splits, rots, offtypes, and some bacterial damage. Sunscald was not included, as most fruit would have been harvested before becoming susceptible under normal farming conditions. Foliage powdery mildew ratings were taken on Aug.15 and based on a scale of 1-10, 1= no pm and 10 = total coverage or death.
Market demand was also a topic of conversation during the viewing of this trial, with general agreement that consumers preferred small to medium-sized fruit, such as Butternut, and that there was growing popularity for specialty squashes.
The no-till (NT) pumpkin trial for weed control research evaluated the use of rye residue management strategies. Four strategies were employed: mowing and removing straw, disking; strip tilling into mowed straw and standing rye residues, were all compared to conventional tilling. In this particular trial, over three inches of rainfall occurred 10 days after planting, which intensified the Sandea-associated injury in all the herbicide-treated plots. (1.3 pounds ai/A Sonalan plus 0.032 pounds. Sandea was applied pre-emergence.) Within days of plant emergence, stunting was evident and continued until August.
Weed control was most effective in NT plots compared to the untreated, conventionally tilled plots. Of the four NT strategies used, disking and leaving the rye standing provided better weed suppression than strip-tilling and removing the straw. Soil moisture data, which was measured following a drought period, showed that moisture retention in NT with standing rye was significantly higher than that without rye.
The organic cucurbit systems study trial was conducted in a separate field recently carved out of a clearing in a nearby wooded area. Using Olympian cucumbers and Revenue zucchini, the test rows used both transplants and seeds, plastic mulch and row cover, copper and organic-based sprays (Seranade) and no spray. The data reported was marketable yield from a 90-foot row.
Preliminary results showed that yield from transplanted fruit to be much higher than from fruit from seed. Very little powdery mildew was found, with the most visible signs occurring on the non-sprayed, plastic mulched foliage. Based on the preliminary data, phenomenal fruit yield as well as size of fruit occurred in rows transplanted into black plastic mulch. Those rows that had not been sprayed had the same, sometimes higher, yield than the rows treated with copper and Serenade sprays.
Although there was no data available on the zucchini at the time of the meeting, as with the cucumbers, zucchini was tested with direct seed and transplants in order to be able to ascertain whether there is an economic value in seeding over transplants. According to Ted Blomgren of the CDVP of Cornell’s Cooperative Extension, data from trial results can be mailed. For a copy of the trial results call CDVP at (518) 462-2553.
