cooperative extension service n-318 agricultural science ......badrinath jagannathan...
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Water quality resources abound for KY growers By Matt Ernst, independent writerA wealth of water quality resources and decision aids are available, even as Kentucky growers look toward future compliance with Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) rules.
Water is central in the FSMA Produce Safety Rule. “Water can be a direct source of contamination, through irrigation and postharvest handling activities. It can also be an indirect source of contamina-tion, through runoff,” explains Paul Vijayakumar, University of Kentucky extension food safety specialist. Contamination from ge-neric E. coli, which is an indicator for contamination from fecal mat-ter, is a focus of the rule for water.
The Center for Crop Diversification website has fact sheets, devel-oped by Vijayakumar and his team, to help growers walk through whether they will be affected by the FSMA rules. Fact sheets are available at http://www.uky.edu/ccd/foodsafety/fsma.
Even though compliance with the FSMA agriculture water section has been extended by the FDA, UK extension has since October 2017 coordinated grower trainings and field days on water quality com-pliance. “We thought we’d get a head start and have these resources available for growers,” says Vijayakumar.
The Kentucky Horticulture Council (KHC) is taking a proactive stance on produce safety and water quality. “With a project funded by a grant from National Farmers Union, we’re testing water quality at 16 farm sites in Kentucky,” says Cindy Finneseth, KHC executive director. One goal of the water testing project is to help growers un-derstand on-farm realities and evaluate options for bringing E. coli levels into compliance under future regulations.
What’s insideNew irrigation video ......... 4 Tomato issues ................. 5
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July 2019Brett Wolff, EditorChristy Cassady, Editor/Designer
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Cooperative Extension Service University of KentuckyDepartment of HorticultureN-318 Agricultural Science CenterLexington KY 40546-0091(859) 257-1477Fax: (859) 257-2859extension.ca.uky.edu
Educational programs of Kentucky Cooperative Extension serve all people regardless of economicor social status and will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, creed,religion, political belief, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, maritalstatus, genetic information, age, veteran status, or physical or mental disability. University of Kentucky,Kentucky State University, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and Kentucky Counties, Cooperating.
Phone: (859) 257-1546E-‐mail: [email protected]
Badrinath Jagannathan
E-‐mail: [email protected]
C. Dain SatterwhiteE-mail:
Tyler GoodlettMari SchroederE-mail:
[email protected]‐mail:
Jarrod works for the Kentucky Department for Public Health Food Safety Branch and is the Rapid Response Team coordinator, produce grant coordinator and Environmental Strike Team coordinator for the state of Kentucky. Jarrod has worked in public health for over 16 years.
Jarrod CraseBryan BradyE-mail:
[email protected]‐mail:
Ben ConnerE-‐mail:
Dr. Paul Priyesh Vijayakumar
Ryan Mairs
Dain is the assistant program manager for the Produce Safety Program at the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. He works closely with the program manager to promote education and outreach, and to assist with the regulation of the Produce Safety Rule in Kentucky. Dain is a recent graduate of UK with a degree in agricultural economics.
For additional contact information for food safety assistance at the county level, please contact Dr. Paul Vijayakumar at (859) 257-1546 or [email protected].
Dr. Vijayakumar works with food processors and producers to understand aspects of food safety, primarily the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). He is the Produce Safety Alliance (PSA) lead trainer to teach PSA grower training for the FSMA Produce Safety Rule. He recently developed training and educational programs for the Food Safety Modernization Act, Third Party GAP, and Produce Best Practices Training (PBPT).
Badri is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Animal & Food Sciences at the University of Kentucky. He is specializing in the field of food microbiology, studying the possible solutions to reduce foodborne pathogen contamination on fresh produce.
Mari is a master's student in the Department of Animal & Food Sciences at UK. She specializes in food policies and procedures, with the intent of helping growers to better understand how to carry out safe food safety practices.
Bryan is an agriculture senior extension associate with the Food Connection @ UK. Bryan works directly on-farm with wholesale-ready producers to prepare and successfully complete third party food safety audits. He also provides technical assistance on wholesale produce quality and facilitates enrollment in wholesale distribution systems.
Ben is the Produce Safety Program manager at the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. He works to oversee implementation of the Produce Safety Rule in Kentucky through education and outreach activities as well as regulatory activities. He and his team work closely with UK in educating farmers around Kentucky about produce safety.
Ryan is a field representative for the Produce Safety Program at the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. He will be working primarily in Western Kentucky, conducting inspections as well as assisting with education and outreach for the Produce Safety Rule. He received his M.S. in agriculture from Western Kentucky University in 2018, where he worked as a graduate research assistant for WKU’s Department of Agriculture and Food Science.
Tyler is a field representative for the Produce Safety Program at the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. He will be working primarily in the Eastern region where he will conduct inspections as well as coordinate education and outreach activities related to the Produce Safety Rule. He received his B.S. from UK in agriculture in 2018.
E-‐mail: [email protected]
Kentucky Produce Safety Team
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A field day at the Clark County testing site, held at the end of May, showed growers different options for treating irrigation water. “Right now growers have time on their side. You can get a couple wa-ter tests throughout the growing year to see where you stand now, and then address any challenges,” says Bryan Brady, UK senior extension associate.
The CCD fact sheet listing labs in Kentucky provid-ing water testing that meets FSMA requirements is at http://www.uky.edu/ccd/sites/www.uky.edu.ccd/files/FSMA_Water_Part2_Final.pdf
On-farm strategiesMunicipal water, already treated, is the safest wa-ter source for irrigating produce – and washing crops. Kentucky growers washing produce after harvest almost always use municipal water, ac-cording to UK staff observations.
Irrigation water coming from a well, pond or stream can vary in E. coli levels. Wells are regarded safest, followed by ponds, then streams. Growers are usually using in-line chlorinators to treat pond and stream water, says Brady. Chlorination tablets are used to treat water in the line flowing from the water source to the field.
Ultraviolet (UV) treatment is another emerging strategy, but UV units require electricity. This
Continued from Page 1 makes installation more complex, Brady says. The first on-farm UV unit in Kentucky will be installed this fall.
Another E. coli mitigation strategy proposed in FSMA is microbial die-off: crops are not irrigated for a set time interval before harvest, allowing E. coli population reductions. Research is ongoing nationally, says Brady, to pinpoint more exactly the effects of UV radiation from sunlight on mi-crobes.
Know your farm, know your cropBrady recommends letting crop mix dictate the ur-gency of implementing water quality testing. “If it’s a crop that you eat raw and needs a lot of ir-rigation up to harvest and it’s a crop that grows on the ground, like lettuce, onions, radishes, you really need to know what your water quality is and take steps to ensure your product’s going to be safe,” he says.
Experts emphasize the risks of food safety issues from contaminated water for all growers. Finnes-eth says every grower selling food crops in Ken-tucky should address food safety. “Some smaller producers may be exempt from meeting some water quality guidelines under FSMA, but I think market gardeners should still be monitoring water quality” for risk management purposes, she said.
Typical August expected, but warmer fall predictedBy Joshua Knight, Sr. Extension Associate, HorticultureThe National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Long Range Outlooks forecast average temperature and pre-cipitation patterns for the rest of the summer. This holds true for the longer range predictions for precipitation of August, September and October. How-ever, the expected averages for tempera-ture are higher than normal for August-October of 2019 (right) for southeastern Kentucky. Growers in this part of the commonwealth might prepare for a late start to the cooler fall weather.
August, Septem-ber and October temperature probability from July 18th 2019.
New video outlines components of drip irrigation system
Rudolph, Jacobsen, Knight earn awards for high tunnel resources
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University of Kentucky extension specialist for veg-etable production Dr. Rachel Rudolph and senior extension associate for horticulture Joshua Knight each received two American Society for Horticul-tural Science awards in July for their development of extension materials. One award was for the development of a custom-izable PowerPoint presentation shared with horti-culture and agriculture agents around the common-wealth to help them develop their own programming for high tunnel production.The second award was given to Rudolph, Dr. Krista Jacobsen and Knight for the development of a post-er/infographic titled High Tunnel Planting Calen-dar for Annual Crops, including three region spe-cific versions and an accompanying extension fact sheet (CCD-FS-9) to help growers get the most out of the poster. The poster shows risk-friendly seed/transplant and harvest timing and critical air temperature ranges for as many as 37 different crops that can be grown in high tunnels. Additionally, the calendar uses a color-coded at-a-glance reference to show crop fami-lies. This lets growers planning their season make choices for rotation that take into account succession
planting and rotation by botanical family when de-ciding what crops to plant in their high tunnel. Ro-tation by botanical family is often a critical manage-ment strategy for reducing disease pressure. A link to high-resolution posters for each region is available on the CCD website alongside other sys-tem specific production resources. A shortened, direct link is available here: https://tinyurl.com/y4d3qn7d. Hard copies printed on poster paper can be requested through your county’s extension office.Both projects were developed in response to feed-back and interest from our grower communities and with multiple rounds of review by research faculty and extension personnel.
By Joshua Knight, Sr. Extension Associate, HorticultureThe Center for Crop Diversification and the UK Department of Horticulture have produced a short video (under five minutes) showing the components of a simple drip irrigation system. This video was developed in response to interest from our horticulture grower community as part of a larger project to develop extension materials related to irrigation for growers with a range of experience.A drip irrigation system, like the one shown in the video, is very versatile. It can be used in smaller areas of a few hundred square feet for kitchen gardens or in high tunnels, up to a larger field production system of several acres.Among the benefits of drip irrigation are its high efficiency and its reduction of disease pressure. Drip irrigation delivers water directly to the root zone, where it is needed by the plant. This drastically reduces the water lost to evaporation, which is where most of the irrigation water applied in overhead
irrigation and flood and furrow systems goes.Similarly, as water is not being applied to the above ground leaf tissue and plant diseases require water to thrive and reproduce, this reduces the potential for disease infestation of the aboveground plant surfaces. Less disease pressure means more marketable plant material.The video is hosted on the UK Horticulture YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/UKRECHORT/) and the link to the video can be found here: https://tinyurl.com/yylxf6yd.
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Christy Cassady, Extension Specialist
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Seasonal vegetable issuesBy Dr. Rachel Rudolph, UK Extension Vegetable Specialist“What is wrong with my toma-to plants?”Here is an example of tomato plants exhibiting symptoms of magnesium deficiency. It is distinguished by the yellowing between the veins (interveinal chlorosis) in the older/lower leaves of plants. If not treated or if it becomes more severe, it will move up the plant into younger leaves. Magnesium is less available to the plant at a lower soil pH (lower than 6.0). It is impor-tant to get a soil test prior to planting in order to adjust the pH and soil nutrients accord-ing to the crop you plan to plant. To adjust the pH (rais-ing or lowering), it takes approximately six months for lime or sulfur to take full effect after applying to the soil. Many nutrient deficien-cies look similar. A foliar test is recommended to ensure proper diagnosis. A soil test with results of 200 pounds per acre of magnesium is recommended. Magnesium can compete with potassium for uptake which can cause ripening disorders so it is important to keep levels in check and not over apply.
For more information on this and other issues in
Photos by Rachel Rudolph
tomato, see ID-172 An IPM Scouting Guide for Common Pests of Solanaceous Crops in Kentucky and/or ID-235 An IPM Scouting Guide for Common Problems of High Tunnel and Green-house Vegetable Crops in Kentucky.
Department of HorticultureN-318 Agricultural Science CenterLexington, KY, 40546-0091