0:00In this video, we're going to be talking about how to manage fall pests.

0:04Different seasons have different pest pressures. And so, if you're planning on growing fall crops and into the winter,

0:10there's some things you need to be paying attention to. So, what are the key things to to be prepared for when it comes to fall growing?

0:21Well, I think the biggest challenges at least that we've had with with fall pests is your worms, your cabbage worms

0:28or army worms. Um, and then aphids.

0:34And those are are largely on the brasacas. And again, because you're starting them in the heat of the summer,

0:42you have to really work hard to get them through the heat to the fall. Um, so you

0:50there's also a possibility for cutworm damage if u you know when you're planting your fall crops.

0:59We found with cutworms that if we keep the weeds out um you know they they seem to there's

1:09certain kinds of weeds like chickweed and stuff that the cutworms love.

1:15And so if we can keep the the chickw weed out and and other weeds then we don't have much issue with cutworms.

1:23Interesting.

1:25But as far as the other worms um there are some very simple solutions.

1:32Probably the most wellknown is uh something like dipel. Now, dipel

1:39is a trade name. Um, but the active ingredient is BT or basillusensis.

1:47Um,

1:49that works wonders on on any of your worms on your brasas.

1:55And you know, at least for us in this part of the country,

2:00it's always an issue. And so we just do like a preventative, you know, every week or 10 days

2:08we're spraying. But they they recommend that you don't just spray dip pill

2:15because there is the potential for the worms to to um what do they call it? You

2:22know, to adapt to it to uh uh res build a resistance or something.

2:29Yeah. Yeah. resistance to it. So,

2:32another one that works really well is um entrust or again that's a trade name. The active

2:41ingredient on this is spinosid and I think I think maybe you all have

2:48one a m insect spray. Yep. That has the same active ingredient. So,

2:55it's going to do the same thing. But that works on your worms. Also works on a few other things. Works amazingly well

3:04on Colorado potato beetles and um flea beetles. Okay.

3:10So, it works well on those. Um,

3:16one thing you have to remember with with brasacas, if you've grown them at all,

3:22you know that water just beads up and rolls off the leaf.

3:28So, you're spraying and the spray is all just rolling off the plants. So, what

3:35you need is something like this. This is called Therex.

3:41It's worked really well for us. It's a natural wedding agent made out of yucka extract.

3:48And so you mix some of that in your tank when you're spraying and then the dipel or whatever you're spraying sticks to the leaves much better.

3:59Okay? So that's an important thing to remember.

4:04When it comes to aphids, aphids can be a big issue in the fall. And um

4:14again, Elliot Coleman shared a couple tips with me that have worked really well. Well, he he

4:22said aphids, the the cause for aphids is either water stress, which is usually in the fall it would be not enough water,

4:34um so the plants are wilting, whatever.

4:37And the the second reason for aphids is too much nitrogen.

4:44So if you can watch those two things and and I think the big one in the fall is the the water stress because again

4:52you're growing a cool weather crop in the heat of the summer when you're starting out. So keep them well hydrated.

5:01Yeah. And um then if you do notice aphids and and the way you'll notice it

5:09if you're scouting regularly, you'll see the leaves are are getting deformed.

5:16And if you look under those leaves,

5:18you'll see many times they're covered with aphids.

5:24The challenge is because they're under the leaves, it's very hard to get the spray on them. We use something called impede,

5:35which is just a insecticidal soap. It's a commercially available insecticidal

5:42soap. There's other varieties. I'm sure you probably sell one. Um,

5:49but basically they're designed to suffocate the aphids by coating them with this soapy mixture.

5:58And if you're not getting where the aphids are, you're not going to suffocate them. And so it's it's a

6:06challenge to to get rid of the the aphids once you get them. So, you want

6:13to do your best to keep from getting them.

6:18And then if you do get them, you're going to have the work of actually trying to spray under all the leaves.

6:25Yeah. Yeah. That's where you're I know you used to use like a backpack like blower sprayer. There's kind of a

6:33difference between just a regular sprayer and one that's actually blowing a lot of velocity of air. Is that where

6:40you use the the air blower to kind of turn the leaves and exact get from all directions?

6:46You know, I would say for starters, you want to at least have a pump up backpack sprayer. Yeah.

6:53You know, anything you're having to pump by hand and carry. That's just not efficient enough for a market garden.

7:01But you can start with a hand pump, backpacker,

7:04backpack sprayer. M um then the next step up would be a batterypowered backpack sprayer. But then I think the

7:13ultimate solution is what they call a mist blower. We have a steel that we love and the beauty of it is it just

7:22moves the leaves all around and helps you to get under there and get the coating on the insects. There's a lot of information we've shared in this video,

7:32but a lot of great snippets of information to help uh deal with manage some of those fall pests that can be a

7:40nuisance. So, I hope that some of this information has been helpful to you and until next time, happy growing.

7:47[Music]