The herbicide Chateau SW® is labeled for several vegetable crops including asparagus, mint, onion, and sweet potato. Recently, several growers asked Purdue University whether this product could be labeled in Indiana for cucurbit production. The answer is that Chateau® is not and will not be labeled for Indiana cucurbit production. We want to use this[Read More…]
Dan Egel
Cool season crops such as lettuce are becoming a more popular crop among Indiana greenhouse/high tunnel growers. One of the most important diseases of lettuce is known as lettuce drop. The symptoms of lettuce drop are often noticed after the thinning stage, early in the crop development. The early symptoms may include browning of leaves. Later[Read More…]
Updates to the MW Vegetable Production Guide for Commercial Growers 2016 (ID-56)-The table below gives the changes that have been made to the on-line version of the ID-56 as of this date. If you have purchased, or will purchase, a hard copy of this guide, please make these changes. If you use the ID-56, these[Read More…]
New fungicide – I would like to announce the release of a new fungicide, Orondis® from Syngenta. It is a good product and should help commercial vegetable growers in combating downy mildew of cucurbits, Phytophthora blight of cucurbits, peppers and tomato, Buckeye rot of tomato and late blight of potato and tomato. However, I also want to[Read More…]
2016 Indiana Small Farm Conference Location: Danville, Indiana Date: March 3 to 5, 2016 Keynote speaker of this year’s conference is Mary Dee Berry the executive director of The Berry Center, and Ben Hartman the author of The Lean Farm. More information regarding registration, conference schedule, as well as directions and lodging is available at[Read More…]
The last two summers, I have had pretty good fungicide trials for powdery mildew of pumpkin. Since all of the products trialed are now labeled or close to being labeled, I thought it was time to share this information with vegetable growers of Indiana. First, a bit of background about this disease. In Indiana, powdery[Read More…]
In a separate article in this issue, I discussed management of powdery mildew with conventional fungicides. Here I would like to talk about powdery mildew management of cucurbits with organically approved products. I will describe two studies, one with all organically approved products and a second with a combination of organic and conventional products. All[Read More…]
This disease does not typically affect Indiana tomatoes, instead preferring tomatoes grown in tropical and sub-tropical areas. Since Cercospora leaf mold was observed in two different areas of Indiana in the 2015 season, it makes sense for growers to become aware of this disease in case it returns to Indiana in 2016. The two locations[Read More…]
Late in the 2015 season, I observed some unusual symptoms of anthracnose on watermelon fruit. I wanted to discuss these symptoms, but first a little background of cucurbits. An extension bulletin on this subject may be found at https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/bp/bp-180-w.pdf. Anthracnose of cucurbits, caused by Colletotrichum orbiculare, is responsible for lesions on leaves, stems and fruit. Crops affected[Read More…]
The 2016 version of the Production Guide (ID-56) is on track to be completed by the first week in January 2016. The ID-56 is an annually updated Guide with recommendations on varieties, production practices, pesticides and more. To get your copy of the ID-56, either visit mwveguide.org or get a hard copy through the Purdue[Read More…]