See disease recommendations for Florida melons from a UF/IFAS Specialized Extension agent for Florida melon growers.

Growing melons in Florida is just about a full-year season, so Florida melon growers deal with the full array of conditions. A Florida Grower article shared disease recommendations for Florida melons from Bob Hochmuth, a UF/IFAS Regional Specialized Extension agent out of Live Oak. See the details below.

Florida Melons and Treatment Recommendations

Hochmuth shared the following recommendations for Florida melons concerning diseases in the article:

Gummy Stem Blight: “It’s the only thing we’ve had reports of and/or confirmation of; relatively minor incidences of gummy stem blight, but we do have some confirmations of gummy. It’s not very widespread,” Hochmuth said.

Fusarium Wilt: “The other one that’s interesting that we would also be concerned about is fusarium wilt. Not that we can do much of anything about it this time of year, but my early observations would be that it’s also less than what we’ve seen the last couple of years. I believe it might be due to the extremely warm conditions in late February and early March when these plants were planted. Fusarium has an advantage in cold weather and a disadvantage when plants get established quickly under warm conditions. Those early plantings might have had a little bit of a competitive advantage over fusarium whereas these more recent plantings (March 10-15) might be at a disadvantage because it’s colder.”

Early Disease Development. “Early in the season, we suggest that they continue with a weekly application of chlorothalonil. Use that while we can early in the season. Once the watermelons get a little bit of size to them, we need to rotate off of chlorothalonil. Unless there is something else that has snuck in on them, we like to see the protective applications of chlorothalonil here early in the season. It might be four or five weeks in a row,” he said.

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