I think it is fairly safe to say if you don't have Mummyberry this year, then you will probably never have it. I have seen more this year than ever before and have been called out to see fields that have lost well over 75% of the crop to Mummyberry. If you look at the order of susceptibility to Mummyberry, the varieties that we grow (Blueray, Bluecrop) are at the top of the list. On years where there is an extremely wet spring and control measures are not taken, Mummyberry is enemy number one.

So what should you use as a control? Now that Funginex is no longer available, what are the other options? In order to control this disease, it would help to understand how Mummyberry works. There are two phases of Mummyberry. The first phase is shoot blight followed by the second phase--hard rot of fruit. The little spore launching trumpets that emerge from the mummy berries on the ground around bud break, is phase number one. The trumpet spores land on the new shoots of the bush before flowers are out. They will infect the young tissue during wet weather. Later in the season, spores from these infections launch themselves onto the flower. This is where actual fruit rot comes from.
This cycle continues year after year until something is done to stop it. So what are your options if you are seeing Mummyberry now and want to control it next year?

1. We already said that Funginex (an old chemical that used to do a bang up job on Mummyberry) is no longer available. For those few growers who stocked up before the chemical was no longer made, one application at green tip and again 7-10 days later should take care of you.

2. Other fungicides have been tested in New York State and have shown positive results. Unfortunately, at this time none of these are registered for Mummyberry in NY. Hopefully, soon we will have other chemical options.

3. Benlate is listed for Mummyberry control during the bloom period. This spray is meant to inhibit secondary infection onto the flower but has not control over primary infection onto green tissue.

4. Shallow cultivation at bud break is another means of control. The reasoning is this: the trumpets have formed and are getting ready to launch spores into the bush, along comes the cultivator and turns them upside down or buries them, causing all the spores to shoot into the ground. In low pressure fields this may help a lot, however, you can imagine that only a percentage of spores will be misguided.

5. Urea sprays offer some control. Urea sprays are also applied at this time to the ground to disrupt spores. This is another partial control and not the total answer.

6. I have heard of a grower that goes through with a backpack flame weeder and burns the trumpets off the mummified fruit during bud break. He reports that it works very well on both Mummyberry and weed control, but takes a lot of man-hours per acre.

Another concern at this time is blueberry maggot. Be sure to put your traps out and monitor your fields. Use a yellow sticky trap and a threshold of one fly. Plan on ten day intervals if you are catching flies. In non-sprayed fields, blueberry maggot levels are very high this year.