If you grow fruits and vegetables for sale, you should consider attending the Produce Safety Alliance Grower Training on Tuesday, March 19. It will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Elkhart County Community Center on the Elkhart County 4-H Fairgrounds, 17746 County Road 34, Goshen, Indiana. For growers across the state,[Read More…]
Farmers market managers and vendors can join Purdue Extension for the Farmers Market Certificate Program online. The cost is $75. Learn how to navigate food safety regulations, understand legal issues of markets, improve market stability, offer food assistance programs, manage conflict, and more. This program will meet in four (4) sessions on Thursdays from 6:30-8:30[Read More…]
Below, you will find documents outlining the legislative changes that the governor signed this week regarding the use of pesticides in Indiana. These changes will go into effect July 1, 2024, but OISC will implement the less stringent measures immediately. Cheri Janssen, Purdue Pesticide Programs Curriculum Development Specialist, is already working on updating materials to reflect[Read More…]
The Indiana Nutrient Management Tool is a new Excel workbook that provides fertilizer and amendment recommendations for vegetables commonly grown in Indiana. Whether for a backyard garden or a market farm, the tool allows the user to create a plan for the amount of products needed to meet the nutrient goals, which can be based[Read More…]
I have been asked a lot about what the unusually high temperatures we have been experiencing lately will mean for insect pests this season. I don’t have a good answer and often must respond with “it depends,” which is not very satisfying to those who ask. However, in exploring the question, I found the seasonal[Read More…]
Common names: Henbit, henbit dead nettle, henbit nettle, blind nettle, bee nettle, and giraffe head. Latin name: Lamium amplexicaule. “Lamium” is derived from the Latin for “throat,” referencing the flower tube’s elongated shape. “amplexicaule”, also derived from the Latin, means “embracing the stem,” describing the upper leaves of henbit that encircle the stem. Family: Lamiaceae[Read More…]
The 2023 Purdue Small Farm Education Field Day was held at the Purdue Student Farm in West Lafayette, Indiana. With 105 participants registered, the in-person event featured an array of on-farm demonstrations and was a resounding success. Nearly 84% of attendees reported that they learned something they didn’t know before. A third (34%) indicated they[Read More…]
Purdue Extension presented its second Fruit and Vegetable Field Day post-pandemic at the Throckmorton Purdue Agriculture Center’s Meigs Horticulture Research Farm, located in Lafayette, on July 20th, 2023. Extension Specialists and Graduate Students presented specialty crop research to 90 attendees. Attendees had only good things to say about the event. ‘It was an interesting program,[Read More…]
Over the past year, we conducted a comparative study on microclimate conditions within caterpillar tunnels and high tunnels at five farms in Indiana. This initiative was prompted by the growing interest in employing caterpillar tunnels for season-extension vegetable production among small and diversified farms. Caterpillar tunnels, typically lower in height than permanent high tunnels, stand[Read More…]