This year, it is very hard to give general statements about plant development stage and susceptibility to Monilinia infection. I am seeing delayed and uneven development across the province. Some fields in Cape Breton are just approaching 40% F2 while some fields in Central NS reached that stage 3 weeks ago.
However, we are approaching the end of Monilinia season for much of the province, as infection risk is decreasing, particularly for typically early fields. We received much less rain than forecasted today and the amounts forecasted for the rest of the week are quite low. If the forecast holds and temperatures stay in the mid teens, much of the monilinia risk will be gone by the weekend in mainland Nova Scotia.
That being said, if you have fields, in small micro-climates, that are still in early fruit bud development stages, risk of monilinia infection could still be high for those areas.
I expect by next week we will be in early bloom, in many areas, and farms will need to consider controls for botrytis in areas prone to that disease.
The next update will be on Friday, May 31st.
