While many growers use high tunnels to extend the growing period for warm-season crops such as tomatoes or cucumbers, it is also possible to grow cool-season crops such as spinach well into winter. The winter over much of Indiana has been rather mild; spinach and other cool-season crops should be doing well. However, disease and[Read More…]
Greens and Salad Crops
Although Indiana is not known for lettuce production, an increasing number of growers find that augmenting retail sales with leaf lettuce can be profitable. Since lettuce is a cool season crop, field planted leaf lettuce around Indiana may be reaching harvest stage. Leaf lettuce can generally be grown with few pests. However, lettuce drop was[Read More…]
Bolting of crops overwintered in high tunnels is common in the spring. ‘Bolting’ refers to lengthening and blooming of the flowering stalk. Bolting is often a problem because the quality of the marketable part of the plant declines. Also, plants subject to bolting are programmed to die once they complete flowering and seed production so[Read More…]
It’s that time of year, where we are prepping high tunnels and getting back into the full swing of production, slowly, here in the Midwest. Many of you have already begun to transplant and may have encountered your first pests on these new crops. Aphids are one that remain a problem in high tunnels, and[Read More…]
Blackheart of celery is a physiological disorder that causes significant crop loss in major celery production areas. It is characterized by the breakdown of young leaf tissues in the heart of the plants (Figure 1). The affected young tissues turn black, which give it the name “blackheart”. The cause of blackheart of celery is related[Read More…]
Winter farmers markets are becoming more and more popular. Lettuce is a primary type of vegetables grown for the market. As we are finishing up summer crops, it is a good time to learn and refresh knowledge about lettuce. This article discusses some of the basics of growing lettuce in high tunnels, as well as[Read More…]
Some of the red and green multi-leaf lettuce plants in Figure 1 are wilted and closer inspection reveals death and soft decay at the crown and well as freeze damage (Figure 2). Getting even closer as in Figure 3 we see white fuzzy mold and find hard black sclerotia 1/8 to ¼ inch across and[Read More…]
Aphids can be one of the most damaging and hard to control pests during the winter months in high tunnels. The first step to managing aphids is to develop a scouting plan. Aphids reproduce clonally and develop quickly leading to very large population build-up in a short period of time. Therefore scouting is recommended at[Read More…]
Many of our vegetable crops are subject to feeding by one or more species of flea beetles (Figure 1). Flea beetles get their name because they have enlarged hind legs that allow them to jump like fleas. Most species are quite small, and with their ability to jump, often seem to just disappear when disturbed.[Read More…]
Do you grow spinach or lettuce in Northwest Indiana? Drs. Lindsay Gielda and Scott Bates in the Dept. of Biological Sciences at Purdue University Northwest would like to collect a few samples from your farm. They are studying how the endosymbiotic fungi that naturally live on spinach and lettuce might inhibit the growth of pathogenic E. coli strains[Read More…]