Invasive Texas Crop Pest, 1,600 Tons of Grapes at Risk & Solar Broccoli | Daily Farm Brief

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Good morning, Farm Nation, and hello, Truck City. This is FarmTales Unplugged Daily Farm Brief for Tuesday, October 6th. I'm Rick Portonova. This morning, there's a new invasive test getting the attention of growers in Texas. And this thing is about the size of a printed hyphen, but it can damage everything from peppers and tomatoes to cotton and sorghum. And then we head to the south shore of Lake Erie, where one grower is staring at roughly 1600 tons of conquered grapes with nowhere to go after a major processing contract disappeared before harvest. And in our high-tech moment, researchers in Sweden are growing broccoli underneath magenta-colored solar panels to see whether the same piece of ground can produce food and electricity at the same time. And then we'll finish up with one useful fall storage note from the old farmer's almanac. Today's daily farm brief is brought to you by World TradeX, empowering farmers. So grab your coffee, fire up whatever you're driving, and let's find out what was happening while you were busy actually working. Story one: a pest the size of a hyphen has Texas growers on alert. We start in Texas, where agricultural researchers are asking growers to keep an eye out for something most people could walk right past without ever seeing. It's called the short-spined thrip. And Texas AM AgriLife has just released updated guidance on how to identify it and what growers can do if they find it. The insect originally comes from Southeast Asia and was first confirmed in Florida several years ago. It has since turned up in other parts of the country, and Texas confirmed its first specimens late last year from hibiscus and pepper plants collected around Dallas. Here's what makes this thing interesting. An adult short spine thrip is roughly one millimeter long. Texas AM describes it as about the size and shape of a printed hyphen. But what it lacks in size, it apparently makes up for it in appetite. The pest feeds by piercing plant tissue and sucking out the contents. That can lead to scarred leaves, curled shoots, flower drop, misshapen fruit, and stunted plants. And it isn't particularly picky. Researchers say potential hosts include peppers, tomatoes, beans, potatoes, strawberries, cucumbers, melons, squash, cotton, sorghum, and corn, along with a long list of ornamental plants. The biggest concern right now isn't that the insect has already taken over Texas. It hasn't. The concern is that Texas has plenty of warm weather and plenty of host plants. Conditions that could allow pests to become established if growers don't catch infestations early. Texas AM recommends scouting plants carefully, watching for unusual scarring and curling, and paying particular attention to incoming plant material because moving infested plants appears to be one of the easiest ways for this insect to travel. Sticky traps can help with monitoring, but identification can be difficult because the insect is so small. So if something in the greenhouse or field suddenly looks wrong, this may be one case where a magnifying glass earns its place in the toolbox. Agriculture has plenty of problems you can see coming from across the field. This one could be sitting on a pepper leaf and still hard to see. Story two 1600 tons of grapes and no buyer. Now to the south shore of Lake Erie, where the harvest has arrived, but the buyer has not. Pennsylvania grower Mark Terrell farms about 200 acres of Concord grapes. This year he has roughly 1,600 tons of fruit at risk after Refresco canceled its contract with him and about 125 other growers in northwest Pennsylvania and western New York. These aren't table grapes that can simply sit around waiting for someone to make an offer. Concords headed for juice need processing quickly. Terrell says once they're harvested, the grapes need to reach a processor within roughly eight hours. That means the processing contract isn't just paperwork, it's part of the harvest system. Without a plant ready to receive the fruit, firing up the harvester can actually make the problem worse. Refresco says its decision followed a review of inventory, market demand, and long-term supply needs. The company says sales of Concorde grape juice has fallen about 30% during the past decade. The growers say the timing is especially painful because much of the year's investment had already been made. The vines were pruned, fertilizer was applied, equipment was ready, and then the market disappeared. Pennsylvania has committed money to purchase some of the crop for food banks, and USDA has agreed to buy millions of dollars worth of surplus juice. But there's a difference between moving juice that's already sitting in storage and finding a home for fresh grapes hanging on the vine right now. And that's what makes this bigger than one bad harvest. A specialty crop operation can be tied to one particular region, one set of equipment, and only a handful of processors. You can't decide Tuesday morning that your 200 acres of Concord grapes are going to become soybeans by Wednesday afternoon. The lesson here is one agriculture knows well. Sometimes the crop can be excellent, the weather can cooperate, the equipment can work, and you still have a serious problem if the market at the end of the driveway disappears. For today's high-tech moment, picture a broccoli field underneath solar panels that make the entire crop look slightly pink. Researchers in Sweden have been experimenting with semi-transparent magenta solar panels that allow selected wavelengths of light to reach the crop while photovoltaic strips generate electricity above it. They compared broccoli grown in regular sunlight with plants underneath panels transmitting different amounts of light. And one number jumped out of the research. Under the denser solar panels, the plants showed a roughly four and a half-fold improvement in light use efficiency. That does not mean they harvested four and a half times more broccoli. What it does mean is that the plants produced considerably more biomass for the smaller amount of sunlight they received. By the end of the trial, the final broccoli yield was roughly comparable with plants grown in open sunlight. But there was a trade-off. The broccoli underneath the panels needed approximately 25 additional days to reach harvest. And 25 days matters. It can affect labor scheduling, disease and insect pressure, harvest windows, and whether another crop can be planted behind it. There was another trade-off too. Because these panels allow part of the sunlight through to the crop, they don't generate as much electricity as a conventional solid solar panel. So this becomes an economics problem as much as an engineering problem. How much broccoli can you grow? How much electricity can you generate? How much is the land worth? And how much does an extra 25 days cost you? This research is still very early. We're talking about one growing season in small research plots, not tens of thousands of acres of commercial production. So nobody should hear this and start ordering magenta solar panels for next year's broccoli crop. But the idea behind it is fascinating. Traditional solar development asks whether land should produce electricity or food. Agrivoltac Research is asking whether the answer could eventually be both. Let's finish with something considerably simpler. Here's today's useful seasonal note from the old farmer's almanac. If you're harvesting winter squash, the almanac recommends waiting until the rind has developed its full color and is hard enough that a fingernail doesn't easily pierce it. Harvest on a dry day, cut the squash from the vine rather than pulling it, and leave an inch or two of the stem attached. And don't use the stem as a carrying handle. If it snaps off, you've created an opening where decay can get started. Before long-term storage, winter squash benefits from a curing period in a warm, dry location. That helps toughen the skin. After curing, move it somewhere cool, dark, and dry with good air circulation. Something in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 degrees is ideal if you've got a suitable place and check the crop occasionally. One squash starting to rot can quickly become several. It's not exactly high technology, but after spending the last few minutes talking about microscopic invasive insects and solar-powered broccoli, there's something reassuring about agricultural advice that comes down to don't bruise the squash. And that's your Tuesday daily farm brief. I'm Rick Portanova. Thank you to World TradeX empowering farmers. 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