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51 articles tagged "Crop Culture".

An Alternative Trellis System may Improve Tomato Yield

April 25, 2019 - From Issue:
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Figure 4. Connect four stakes in a rectangle shape (A), cross the hook (12’’) with the central-string (B) and hook it to the side-strings between the two tomato plants (C).

The Florida-weave or sometimes called stake and weave is a commonly used tomato trellis system (Figure 1). It has several benefits and is easy to implement. However, sometimes the plants grow too tall and can hardly be supported by the stakes, or they may be too vigorous and break the strings. In this article, we will introduce an alternative tomato trellis system, Spanish-weave, and discuss its usage in tomato production. How to trellis tomato plants with the Spanish-weave system? Materials: tomato stakes, tomato strings, and hooks. We made the hooks from steel wire. They were made at 4-inch, 8-inch and 12-inch length (Figure 2). Prune bottom leaves of the tomato plant and suckers until the first flower cluster (Figure 3). Install tomato stakes on each side of the rows at every two tomato plants (A); Tie strings across the two wooden stakes at the beginning and the end of each[Read More…]

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Protect Early Planted Warm-Season Vegetables from Low Temperatures

April 11, 2019 - From Issue:
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Two types of injury on young warm-season vegetable plants are caused by low temperatures: frost/freezing injury and chilling injury. Frost/freezing injury occurs when temperatures drop below 32°F. Ice formation in plant tissues cut cell membranes. When the tissue thaws, the damage results in fluids leaking from the cell, causing water soaked damage. Frost/freezing injury is detrimental to warm-season vegetables, such as melons, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, beans. To avoid damage, the best way is to plant warm-season vegetables later in the spring, after the last frost has passed. However, weather is difficult to predict, and there is a growing trend of planting early to achieve early harvests. For the early planted warm-season vegetables, here are a few suggestions that may protect plants from low temperature damages. Covering. The idea of covering the seedlings is to create a microclimate around plants. Because the heat accumulated in soil irradiate back at night, covering[Read More…]

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Chilling Injury on Young Warm-season Vegetable Plants

April 10, 2019 - From Issue:
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Figure 1. Cucumbers start to wilt following a night average soil temperature was 58 °F

Chilling injury occurs when temperatures are above 32°F and below 55°F. The plant tissue becomes weakened that leads to cellular dysfunction. The most noticeable visual symptom of chilling injury is leaf and hypocotyl wilt (Figure 1). This is caused by the rapid decline in the ability of roots to absorb and transport water. It also caused by the plant’s reduced ability to close stomata. If temperatures do not improve, plants may be killed. Low temperatures also have an effect on mineral nutrient uptake of the plants. Absorption of ions by roots is difficult, as well as their movement in the above-ground parts of the plants. As a result, chilling injured plants often show symptoms similar to nutritional deficiency. Although warm-season vegetables are all susceptible to frost/freezing damage, their susceptibility to chilling injury varies among plant species. Pepper plants seem to have greater difficulty recovering after chilling injury compared to tomato[Read More…]

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Bolting and Blooming in High Tunnels

March 14, 2019 - From Issue:
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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 yield will decline in quantity as well as quality. Sometimes bolting is not a problem because the stalk, buds, and flowers can be sold as a new product while they last; this is often the case with kale,  mustards and related crops. Crops susceptible to bolting include those in the mustard family such as kale, mustards, tatsoi, bok choy (pac choi), mizuna, turnip, radish, etc.; carrots; beets and in some cases Swiss chard; onions; lettuce; and spinach. (Figure 1)   Bolting is triggered by environmental conditions. Some plant types are triggered to develop flowers by[Read More…]

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Learn How to Graft Cucumber and Tomato Plants

February 19, 2019 - From Issue:
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Tomato and Cucumber growers who are interested in grafting tomato and cucumber plants by themselves may find this information helpful. Step-By-Step instruction of how to graft tomato plants is available from Purdue Extension publication Vegetable Grafting: Techniques for Tomato Grafting https://mdc.itap.purdue.edu/item.asp?Item_Number=HO-260-W as well as a Purdue Extension video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ufx66Isf88 A cucumber grafting instruction was also recently released. It provides step-by-step guidance of cucumber splice grafting technique. The publication is available at https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/HO/HO-328-W.PDF

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Hollowheart of Watermelons

August 30, 2018 - From Issue:
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Figure 2. A severe case of hollowheart watermelon.

Hollowheart of watermelons is a physiological fruit disorder. Flesh separates inside of the fruit, typically forming three gaps (Figure 1 and 2). In severe cases, hollowheart could cause watermelon load rejection. Watermelon fruit that has hollowheart tends to be triangular shaped. Poor pollination is the primary reason causing hollowheart. Scientists were able to prove that seedless watermelons are more likely to develop hollowheart when the pollenizer plants (diploid watermelons) are located further away from the seedless plants. The study found hollowheart incidence starts to increase when the distance between the seedless plant and the pollenizer plant is more than 6 feet. Cold weather and the lack of bee movement during pollination period causes poor pollination and increases the chance of hollowheart. Some growers use mixed pollenizer plants with different flowering peaks to ensure availability of pollen matching the blooming period of seedless plants. Bumblebees, in addition to honeybees, are sometimes used; bumblebees are relatively more[Read More…]

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Annual Strawberry Production in Southern Indiana

August 16, 2018 - From Issue:
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Figure 1. A server case of leaf burn under high temperatures.

Strawberries are primarily grown in the mattered row system in Indiana, in which bare-root strawberry plants are set in the spring, fruit is first harvested in the second year and plantings are renovated each year for a few seasons. Growers in southern Indiana have expressed interest in growing strawberries in the annual plasticultural system. With this annual system, plants are set in the fall and harvested in the spring of the following year. Plantings are not normally carried over a second year. Although the annual plasticultural system is very popular in the southern states, its usage is limited in Indiana mainly because our short fall weather conditions pose a challenge for strawberry plants to develop enough branch crowns, which allows them to achieve the optimal yield in the following spring. In the past two years, we have been testing the annual strawberry production system with additional protection from high tunnels[Read More…]

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Not All the Watermelon and Cantaloupe Leaf Symptoms are caused by Pests

July 18, 2018 - From Issue:
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Watermelon harvest is in full swing in southern Indiana. At this time, we frequently see many types of leaf symptoms. Some of them are caused by foliar diseases, such as anthracnose, Alternaria leaf blight and gummy stem blight. These diseases require special attention, normally in the form of fungicide sprays, to slow spread of the disease. However, the appearance of a moderate amount of foliar disease in mid-season doesn’t necessarily need an immediate fungicide application. Other leaf symptoms may not be caused by diseases or insects. Here are some examples of leaf symptoms that are not associated with a pathogen. It is important to correctly identify the source of the symptom to prevent unnecessarily pesticide spray. In the article When a yellow leaf is just a yellow leaf, Dr. Dan Egel discussed general rules for determining if the symptom is a disease or not. If you are not certain whether the symptom[Read More…]

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Prune Determinate Tomatoes

April 26, 2018 - From Issue:
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I have recently received a number of calls from growers about how to prune determinate tomatoes in a stake and weave system. Although this is relatively easy compared to how to prune indeterminate tomatoes with a trellis system, there are a few things I would like to call to your attention. What to prune  The common practice is to prune the suckers at the bottom of tomato plants. The benefit of this practice is to improve airflow which may help to control foliar diseases. Shoots of determinate tomatoes stop growing once they set a terminal bud. Most of us understand that if suckers are pruned too much, plants may have reduced yield.  However, there is confusion about exactly what to prune. Normally, the bottom 6-7 suckers should be pruned until the first flower cluster. But it is important to note that the sucker just below the first flower cluster develops a[Read More…]

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Strawberry Winter Protection: Straw Mulch vs. Row Covers

April 12, 2018 - From Issue:
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Figure 1. Strawberries were covered with straw mulch and row cover. Picture were taken in Jan. 9 2018.

Although strawberry plants can be quite cold hardy, they need protection to survive the winter. In North Carolina, growers use floating row covers to protect strawberries in the winter. In Indiana, straw mulch is a more traditional way of winter protection for strawberries grown in a matted row system. After two relatively mild winters in 2015 and 2016, I heard successful stories about growing strawberries with the plasticulture system and using row covers for winter protection in Southern Indiana. Can the system also be successful in a colder winter, like the one that just passed? Our ongoing strawberry study will provide the answer. This article provides an update from this project comparing strawberries covered with straw mulch (about 4-inch thick) and row covers (two layers of 1.5-oz/yard2 row cover laid on wire hoops) this past winter (Figure 1). Temperature Between Dec. 27 to Jan. 6, we had the coldest nights[Read More…]

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