Welcome to the Vegetable Crops Hotline (VCH), Purdue Extension’s exclusive newsletter for people in the business of growing vegetables.
This is our last issue for 2024. I cannot believe that the growing season has gone by that fast. So far this year, the Vegetable Crops Hotline web page has had 174,162 views and 124,515 active users. Engagement with our audience in Indiana reached 16,615 views and 12,180 active users. Our Indiana stakeholders also downloaded 639 newsletter articles. We hope to include more exciting newsletter features in 2025.
This issue includes our featured article on ‘Policies Before Problems: Setting Expectations in your Family Business’ by Dr. Maria Marshall. We also look at ‘Contingency Planning for Cash Flow Shortfalls’ and investigate useful monitoring and climatology tools. Several conference announcements appear in this issue. I have also included a list of fall/winter conferences compiled by the Great Lakes Vegetable Working Group members. We also examine the management of Wirestem, a disease of cole crops, and announce a new strawberry chat podcast episode.
Save The Date
Website Links
We frequently include links to websites or publications available online. If you can’t access these resources, don’t hesitate to contact your local Extension office or us to request a hard copy of the information.
Midwest Vegetable Production Guide
This annually revised guide summarizes currently suggested fertility, cultural, and pest management techniques and tools for commercial vegetable growers. It is a collaboration of land-grant universities from eight states. It provides information on vegetable production that is valid for the current year in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Ohio. The audience for the Midwest Vegetable Production Guide is commercial growers.
The searchable online guide is available at mwveguide.org. There is no charge for accessing the guide, and any updates will be available immediately. Therefore, access the online guide to get the most up-to-date version of the Midwest Vegetable Production Guide. A PDF version can be downloaded at mwveguide.org/guide.
If you want to order several copies (11 per box) of the 2025 guide, please contact Stephen Meyers at slmeyers@purdue.edu. A limited number of hard copies will be printed.
Do not hesitate to contact me at plangenh@purdue.edu if you have any questions or suggestions for improving the newsletter. Let me know if there are specific topics you would like to see more of in the newsletter. Also, let us know if things are not working for you. We want to improve the newsletter, and your input is valuable.
We hope you enjoy the newsletter. Happy reading, and enjoy a little downtime during the winter.