Issue 10, June 27, 2016
Last Weekly and Degree Day Issue
This is the last weekly issue of the Home, Yard, and Garden Pest Newsletter for this year. We will publish every other week through July, August, and September with a final issue in October. Insect, weed, and disease problems arise in rapid succession during the first half of the growing season, making weekly issues necessary.
Although there are important pest problems in the second half of the growing season, they develop slower and are less frequent than in the first half. Also, by the second half of the growing season, leaves have produced most of the sugars for the plant for the growing season so their loss is less harmful to plant health. Leaves have also hardened and become tougher for insects and diseases to damage. For these reasons, we can keep you up-to-date with less often issues.
Degree day timing also becomes less critical in the second half of the growing season. Degree day and phenology timing is critical early in the growing season because early and late springs cause pest susceptibility timing to vary considerably. By July, these variations have evened out through spring cool and hot spells to where calendar timing becomes much more accurate. Degree day information can still be accessed through the rest of the growing season at the web site listed in each degree day article, but we will not be carrying that information in the newsletter. (Phil Nixon)
Author:
Phil Nixon