I am seeing some on my hops. It has been really wet here. This is one of the reasons hop growing left the Midwest for the PNW. In recent years hop growing has started to come back to MI, approaching 500 acres this year.
That is terrible for the growers. The worst part is that the hops take a couple of years to become established, so this isn’t a “better luck next season” situation.
I’m betting the new hop farm in central Indiana (Sugar Creek Hops) has to be in the same boat. We’ve had double the normal rainfall for 3 straight months now. Not very hop friendly.
I’m in the Traverse City area and no mildew yet on my plants. It’s been pretty dry and getting hotter up here.
Hop flowers are out and soon to be hop cones!
Luck, or you have resistant varieties. The link says growers in Empire and the TC area are having loss due to mildew.
I will take downy mildew over Japanese beetles any day. I am giving up on organic growing. My Spalt Select plants are almost completely defoliated from about four feet to the top of the post at fourteen feet despite hitting them several times with PyGanic. I am definitely going to need a better pest management plan next year if my plants survive this season. The Japanese beetle problem is worse this year than it was last year, and last year was a bad year for Japanese beetles.
I didn’t ever have downey mildew or pest problems. I just burned out on growing hops. Given how cheaply I can buy great hops, it just wasn’t worth my time or effort any longer.
Have you tried milky spore?
I am going to apply the beneficial nematode Heterorhabditis bacteriophora in my hop yard, gardens, and around the ornamental trees that Japanese beetles love in September. Heterorhabditis bacteriophora is a hunter-killer nematode that is supposed to be effective against Japanese beetle larvae. I used beneficial nematodes to take care of a massive flea infestation that I had in my yard at my prior residence. The nematodes made quick work of the flea larvae in the soil, putting an end to the life cycle. The problem never came back.
With that said, Japanese beetles are not fleas. The Japanese beetles in my area have been subjected to pesticides long enough that they are difficult to kill. PyGanic is supposed to be an effective contact killer. However, it appears to be ineffective against the Japanese beetles in my area. I personally witnessed Japanese beetles survive for hours after direct application. I do not know if PyGanic eventually killed the beetles because the leaf on which they were feeding was skeletonized by the next morning.
The main problem I am up against is that I live in a semi-rural area where the farmers practice no-till farming. No-till farming is good for the soil and Japanese beetles.
I hear you. I live on the edge of a lot of forest with a lot of agriculture and a lot of large fields. We get everything from moose eating our young fruit trees, bears getting into our bee hives, tomato and potato blight, and Japanese beatles. We treated with milky spore several years ago and had very few Japanese beatles until the year before last when there was a significant amount again. Last year they were bad and I treated with milky spore and this year they are there but about half of last year. This year I will do a more extensive milky spore treatment and maybe look into the nematodes. Fortunately they seem to prefer the elders and nettles to the hops or vegetables so on healthy7 hops vines the damage is minimal.
This is where I’m trending, I still have a Mt. Hood, Columbus and Sterling that take minimal effort to maintain. I like to make a “backyard” batch or two per year, but I rarely mix homegrown and store bought hops.
I happened to see this picture they posted a while back and it’s hard to tell, but there’s some very pale (lemon yellowish) pockets of foliage which sure look like the beginning stages of downy: Sugar Creek Hops on Instagram: "Wild hops are looking nice and bushy" This is a very good example of why it’s important to keep the lower vegetation cleared away from the crowns as that’s the location the infection usually gets started.
I tried Neem Oil with moderate success, but it needs frequent reapplication (especially after rain). Eventually my J-Beetle problem resolved itself after I started treating treating my lawn for grubs (non-organically).
makes sense. June bugs are the adult for of the lawn grub. Get rid of the grubs and you thin the June bug herd (your neighbors have help to eliminate them) and get the moles to stop digging up your yard too. Moles eat the grubs.
Paul
Chafer beetles, Green June bugs, and Ten-lined June beetles are not much of a problem in my area. Japanese beetles are an entirely different story.
Yeah, definitely showing a yellowish tinge. Thanks for posting.