In a recent Hoosier Ag Today/CCSI Soil Health Podcast, Stephen Meyers of Purdue Horticulture and Dan Perkins of Perkins Good Earth Farm covered spring management of cover crops on vegetable farms. They discussed a variety of methods for terminating: flail mowing and tarping, roller-crimping, tillage, and killing with herbicide. They pointed out that decisions about…Read more about Cover Crops in May: Soil Health Podcast on Spring Management and Observations of Winter Rye at Pinney Purdue[Read More]
Pumpkins
At the Pinney Purdue Ag Center in northern Indiana we had plots in 2020 with no-till sweet corn, pumpkins and winter squash following a rye cover crop. As is common when adapting new planting and tillage systems, we had both challenges and successes. Check out the video presentations to see photos of the plots, and…Read more about No-till Sweet Corn, Pumpkin and Winter Squash after Winter Rye – Reports from 2020[Read More]
This time of year you are likely getting bogged down in the fight against pests. The accumulation of plant pathogens, insects, and climatic conditions favoring their growth can make the last few weeks of harvest feel like the toughest point in the battle. For cucurbit growers in particular, there are a number of insect pests…Read more about Cucumber Beetles Just Don’t Quit![Read More]
Phytophthora blight was a serious disease this past season. As a result, I have had many questions about managing this disease. The following article is an update of a previous article on this subject. The questions I have been asked have ranged from what do I spray to how does this disease work? Therefore, I…Read more about Phytophthora Blight of Cucurbits[Read More]
This disease appears to be more important each year. It is not clear to me why. This article reviews Plectosporium of pumpkin, sometimes called white speck. I would rank Plectosporium blight behind powdery mildew, bacterial leaf spot and Phytophthora blight in economic damage caused. The occurrence of this disease is usually sporadic. However, when it…Read more about Plectosporium blight of Pumpkin[Read More]
Downy mildew has been observed in LaPorte County in northern Indiana on cucumber. In addition, downy mildew on cucumber has been reported in southern Kentucky and on watermelon in the Kansas City area of Kansas. Growers in northern Indiana should manage for downy mildew on valuable cucurbit crops (Figure 1). Growers throughout the state should…Read more about Cucurbit Downy Mildew[Read More]
No-till pumpkin podcast starts the specialty crops series in the HAT-Soil Health podcasts from CCSI, Purdue and Hoosier Ag Today.
You may be seeing a few “stink bug-like” insects crawling around on your cucurbit crops this time of year. However, these slightly more slender insects are not stink bugs, they are actually squash bugs. Similarly to stink bugs though, they do give off quite an odor when crushed! Squash bug adults and nymphs (immatures) (Figures…Read more about Do You Need to Squash those Bugs on Your Pumpkins?[Read More]
Winter squash – butternut, acorn, and kabocha – in our downy mildew sentinel plot at Pinney Purdue were showing some wilted and stunted plants by late July (Figure 1). They are easily pulled up, the stem breaking off at ground level, revealing a brown stringy decayed-looking stem base (Figure 2). Sometimes there is a little…Read more about Wilting Cucurbits! What could it be?[Read More]