Renew now! Vegetable Crops Hotline (VCH), is Purdue Extension’s newsletter for people in the business of growing vegetables. We have fifteen issues throughout the 2018 growing season. The first two issues of the year are being sent to all who subscribed to VCH via US-mail in 2017 as well as new subscribers for 2018. To continue receiving future copies[Read More…]
Cucumbers are produced with very different production systems. The ideal cucumber variety for process pickling production is not the variety used for greenhouse production. Choosing the suitable variety for a specific production system then becomes important. Where do you find recommended cucumber varieties for high tunnel production in seed catalogs? Some of the seed catalogs have a category called Greenhouse[Read More…]
Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule Training A series of Food Safety Modernization Act produce safety rule training and registration information can be found on the website https://ag.purdue.edu/extension/safeproduce/Pages/FSMA-Training.aspx. The curriculum is designed to meet the needs of growers. Modules 1 through 6 align with sections outlined in the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Produce Safety Rule. Module[Read More…]
This article is my response to a grower’s question about lowering soil pH in a high tunnel. The soil test indicated pH of the soil in his high tunnel was 7.7. The high pH could be partially caused by alkaline water he used to use for irrigation. The grower has changed the water source, but[Read More…]
Welcome to a new year of the Vegetable Crops Hotline (VCH), Purdue Extension’s newsletter for people in the business of growing vegetables. As usual, we will have fifteen issues throughout the 2018 growing season. The first issue of the year is sent to all who subscribed to VCH via US-mail in 2017 as well as new subscribers for 2018. To[Read More…]
Awareness of tomato grafting has increased tremendously in the past years. Some growers fall in love with this technology and apply it to every tomato they grow. While others find this technology is not cost effective. The growers who have successfully adapted this technology are often small-scale, high tunnel or greenhouse growers who have mastered the grafting[Read More…]
2018 Indiana Small Farm Conference Date: March 1-3 Location: Hendricks County Fairgrounds, Danville, Indiana The 2018 conference in Danville, Indiana begins with a series of daylong workshops on March 1. Topics include on-farm fresh produce food safety, regenerative farming with livestock and agroforestry, farm viability and financial management, and a four season farm tour. Breakout sessions on[Read More…]
Seedless watermelon variety trials have been conducted at the Southwest Purdue Agricultural Center in Vincennes, IN for more than 20 years. In 2017, we evaluated the performance of 37 standard size seedless watermelon varieties and 4 mini watermelon varieties. This article introduces the top performing varieties in our trial in 2017. Standard size seedless watermelons[Read More…]
This is the final issue of the Vegetable Crops Hotline (VCH) for 2017. Now is the time for subscribers who receive a paper copy in the mail to renew. A renewal form is included with this issue. Note that we provide an up-to three years’ subscription of VCH with a reduced price. You can also sign-up for[Read More…]
Winter is the best time to recharge. In the last issue of this years’ Vegetable Crops Hotline newsletter, I would like to highlight a few free webinar resources that I found very useful in the past season. Hopefully, you can also benefit from them, and have a productive winter. eOrganic webinars http://articles.extension.org/pages/25242/webinars-by-eorganic A lot of great[Read More…]





