David Owens, Extension Entomologist, owensd@udel.edu
Strawberry
Begin scouting strawberries for spider mites and for tarnished plant bug. Tarnished plant bug feed on flowers and developing fruit, causing cat facing, deformity, and button berries. The nymphs are small and lime green, adults are mottled brown and a little bit smaller than a pencil eraser. Scout for tarnished plant bug by shaking 30 flower trusses or clusters (6 groups of 5 across the field) on a dark sheet or on the black plastic where the nymphs will be more easily seen. Count the number of infested flower clusters (not number of nymphs). A variation on the sampling method is to first sample 15 flower clusters. If 0 clusters are infested, you do not need to spray but if 3 or more are infested, control is justified. If between 0-3, check 5 more flower clusters. The complete sequence can be found here: https://ag.umass.edu/fruit/fact-sheets/strawberry-ipm-tarnished-plant-bug. Spider mite thresholds at this time are 15-20 mites per leaflet.
Peaches
Early peaches are approaching shuck split. Begin scouting for plum curculio either by examining fruit for signs of feeding injury and oviposition scars (round holes and crescent, ‘man-in-the-moon’ scars, or by beating or shaking branches over a white cloth. University of Georgia recommends two to three insecticide applications every 10-14 days should control this first wave of curculio. If bagging fruit, make a fungicide/insecticide application before bagging fruit to assure good quality. Imidan, the neonics Actara and Belay, and Avaunt provide good control of both curculio and Oriental fruit moth.