THE EARTHTECH NEWS

I keep looking for good news but it all seems to be on the negative side. We have Drought Disasters in 42 states. Colorado has 57 of 64 counties in that category. Agriculture officials fear a significant portion of farms will fold due to the ongoing drought. The same is true for the other 41 states. According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service, Colorado has lost about 1 million acres of farmland since peaking in the 1070s, most of the loss occurring since 1997.

The drought disaster designation for the 42 states makes farmer and some related businesses eligible for disaster relief through low interest loans from the Department of Agriculture. Non-farm businesses, including irrigation companies, in declared disaster areas and neighboring counties that depend on agriculture may be eligible for the loans.

You can view the latest drought outlook from the Federal Climate Prediction Center,
http://www.ncep.noaa.gov/products/expert_assessment/season_drought.gif .

Go to www.irrigation.org/news/statesman/Statesman_August_2006.pdf, the Irrigation Association's State Legislative and Regulatory News Update, for a complete report.

With water in such demand and supply so little, perhaps it is time all growers looked at Earthtec’s solutions. Remember MONITOR & MANAGE for most effective results.

Droughts are an annual event somewhere. When we have drought, another area has too much rain. It may be on the other side of the earth but there is balance. We just need to monitor, record and use the data to better manage our resources.

While the above subject is on agriculture, we must remember it also affects turf including golf courses and parks. Industry is also affected because of the cost of water or the limiting of it.

Golf courses are subject to shutdown or reduced usage in many part of the country. Can you afford to be short of water? Can better management allow you to survive with existing supplies? Perhaps, even if you don’t now have a problem, you might increase the bottom line by keeping your greens, tees and fairways green and in good playing shape to entice more play. Call Earthtec Solutions at 856-691-1970 or fill in the information at to learn how to monitor and use information for better management.

A good accounting system always uses an audit to verify data and results. While this is periodic, auditing our growing systems is a real time need.

New Fusarium Strain Threatens Watermelons – Extracted from Florida Grower To Go
It’s too bad that one of summer’s most enjoyed simple pleasures—the watermelon—can be such a bear to grow. Melon growers are beset by numerous problems related to disease, weather, pests and the quest for fruit uniformity. But now, unfortunately, a new threat has emerged—one that may cause growers to wince even more.

In separate studies, scientists with the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Lane, Okla., and at the University of Maryland (UM) in Salisbury have identified a new, more aggressive race of the fungus that causes Fusarium wilt in watermelon.

This disease is one that all melon farmers dread seeing. It can attack plants at any stage of growth, leaving young seedlings lifeless, or mature plants fruitless with nothing to show but shriveled and yellowing leaves.

ARS scientists Benny Bruton and Wayne Fish, together with UM’s Xin-Gen Zhou and Kathryne Everts, discovered a new race of the fungus Fusarium oxysporum that causes Fusarium wilt. Their findings were presented last week at the joint meeting of the American Phytopathology Society and Mycological Society of America, in Quebec City, Canada.

Bruton and Fish, who work at the ARS South Central Agricultural Research Laboratory in Lane, found the new race, dubbed “Race 3,” while monitoring watermelon plants in fields near their Oklahoma laboratory. Bruton saw that a new, differently-acting fungus was plaguing plants thought to be resistant to Fusarium.

Three distinct races of Fusarium are known to cause wilt in melons. Plant breeders have developed watermelon varieties that can fend off Races 0 and 1 fairly well. And, luckily, Race 2 — for which there are no resistant commercial cultivars — isn’t competitive in the soil environment.

According to Bruton, the same is likely true for the new, more virulent Race 3. But he’s got a solution. He and colleagues have found that grafting watermelon onto sturdy squash or gourd rootstock is an effective way of controlling Fusarium wilt. Those rootstocks are resistance to the Fusarium races that attack watermelon.