Justin Ballew

What is this red-eyed creature found crawling up a pine tree?

What is this critter that was found resting on the wall inside of a garage?

What is this cool-season weed that is turning fallow fields purple right now?

These citrus leaves are showing symptoms of cold injury. This tree is part of a study at the Sandhill REC in Columbia looking at 9 varieties of citrus that are believed to have improved cold tolerance.

Zack Snipes

Happy 2024! We’re back and ready for another great year of growing fruit and veggies! We hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year.

This cool-season weed called swinecress (Coronopus didymus) was found coming up in a mustard field. As a seedling, swinecress grows in a rosette, as seen here.

While picking out the ingredients for my Thanksgiving sweetpotato casserole, I found this sweetpotato full of holes. The holes are tell-tale signs of wireworm feeding.

Today’s update will be our final update of 2023. With things slowing down in the field, we will take some time to focus on other projects, and the Weekly Field Updates will resume in January. We hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season, and we’ll see you back in 2024!

This is an armyworm egg mass on a tomato leaf, possibly from the beet armyworm (Spodoptera exigua). The beet armyworm is a pest of vegetables across the Southern US.

Zack Snipes

From the SC Grower crew, we hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving later this week! Be sure to eat lots of fresh SC grown collard greens and sweetpotatoes!

This is a corn earworm (Helicoverpa zea) boring into a tomato. This common caterpillar pest is known by other names, including tomato fruitworm, cotton bollworm, and soybean podworm.

Rob Last

Rob Last

Common vetch (Vicia sativa) is starting to show up in vegetable fields. Vetch is a cool-season weed that begins germinating in the fall and begins blooming in the winter, peaking in the spring. Vetch is in the legume family, making it capable of fixing nitrogen in the soil. For this reason, vetches are sometimes used as a component of multi-species cover crops. Vetch can be particularly problematic in crops like strawberries as it comes up in the planting holes in the plastic, competing with the young strawberry transplants for water and nutrients. This competition can significantly slow down the development of the strawberries, reducing their yield in the spring.

Zack Snipes

This hole was most likely made by a melonworm. A hole this size is actually an exit hole chewed by the worm on its way out to pupate. Before that, the worm was inside the bloom feeding on the reproductive parts of the flower. The photo below shows another bloom from the same field with the worm still inside.

This squash is showing abnormal growth, known as fasciation. Fasciation is the abnormal development of a meristem or growing point.

The light-colored discoloration on these zucchini plant leaves is known as Squash Silverleaf Disorder (SSL) and is the result of immature whiteflies feeding on the squash leaves. SSL reduces the plant’s ability to photosynthesize, leading to stunting and reduced yields.

Zack Snipes

Zack Snipes

This squash is showing symptoms of a virus. There are numerous viruses that affect cucurbit crops, which may be transmitted in various ways, such as by insects (aphids, whiteflies, cucumber beetles), through seed, or mechanical damage.

Zack Snipes

This hairy-looking flower will develop into a snake bean flower. I recently visited a community garden and was stumped when the groundskeeper asked me if I knew what plant this crazy-looking flower belonged to. After I blanked for some time, I was informed that this flower belonged to the Python Snake Bean plant (Trichosanthes cucumerina), sometimes called a snake gourd or serpent gourd.

This crazy looking flower is a passionflower bloom (Passiflora incarnata). Passionflower is fast-growing vine that is native to the Southeast.

Rob Last

The galling on these okra roots was caused by root-knot nematodes (RKN). We see nematodes build up in the soil when susceptible crops are planted in the same fields or beds year after year.

Rob Last

What is this critter that was found? This spiky-looking thing on the underside of a cucumber leaf is a squash beetle larva. This is one of two species in the lady beetle family that feed on vegetable crops.

Rob Last

What caused the hole in the side of this cucumber? (Nothing is wrong with the color. This cultivar is called Silver Slicer.) This week’s question is a review from a post Tom Bilbo wrote recently about pickleworms.

Recently, the results of the 2022 Farm Gate survey were posted, showing data for several crops grown in SC. In the coming weeks, we will be collecting data for 2023 on a new set of crops. Extension Agents from around the state will be contacting growers to ask about this data. Our goal will be to calculate a total value for each crop in order to highlight the importance of agriculture in SC, track agricultural trends, obtain research funding, and provide information to our legislators who influence agricultural policy. No personal or identifying data will be published. Revisit the reports from 2022 to see an example of what will be released.

Here we see an assassin bug that has caught and is feeding on a lady beetle. Normally, both of these insects are good guys, though when assassin bugs get hungry, they will eat just about anything they can catch.

This is a pigweed seedling that came up in a field that was disked recently. Pigweed, also known as Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri), is one of the most aggressive weeds that farmers battle.

Zack Snipes