Prestige Early Red - spray

This crop of Prestige Early Red was ready about a week earlier than scheduled and is a little smaller than planned. The plants look very good. The short height is probably a result of earlier flowering which gave less vegetative time before initiation and of the cool temperatures. A good comparison is to look at the Prestige Early from 2007 that was on a similar schedule. With the much warmer temperatures last year the plants were slower finishing and more PGR was required. For this crop only one PGR application was made, which was a little too much. In the future if this schedule is used then the early PGR should not be applied unless heights are well above curve like last year. An alternative is to plant and pinch a week earlier that would be better in cooler years, but mean more PGR use in warmer years.