Above is a wild blackberry cane with sooty blotch and flyspeck colonies-a common inoculum source for primary infection of apple fruit. Accumulated wetting hours (starting April 29, 10 days after petal fall, Apr 19), as of June 28: Winchester AREC, 252 hr. Accumulation of wetting hours has been slow the past week, but we have just reached the 250-hr threshold for presence of sooty blotch and flyspeck fungi on unprotected fruit. We have had no extended wetting periods since June 15. Washington, VA in Rappahannock county has had more wetting hours, with a total of 338 as of June 28. Hit-or-miss evening showers likely led to some of the difference in accumulated hours and would also make a difference in areas of Frederick county that received evening wetting in the past two weeks.
