We received 3.5 inches of rain this past week and as soon as the sun popped out this morning I knew it was time to fight pecan scab. High humidity, warm temperatures and nuts that are rapidly expanding in size all make for perfect conditions for the spread of scab. This morning I walked out to some of our Pawnee trees and found a few small scab lesions on the nuts (photo at right). It was definitely time to take action.
We sprayed all improved cultivars with Headline fungicide using our airblast sprayer (photo at left). We did not include an insecticide with this spray because the insecticide we applied for casebearer last month also served to keep fall webworm in check. With the El Nino weather pattern this year, I'm thinking we might get a wet summer this year and we'll need to make additional fungicide applications later this month.
