Welcome to a new year of the Vegetable Crops Hotline! Starting with this issue, I will be the new editor of VCH newsletter. If you do not know me yet, I am the horticulture specialist located at Vincennes, IN. I am excited to work more closely with VCH. I also feel responsible to continually provide you…Read more about Welcome to the 2016 Season from the New Editor[Read More]
Winter is coming to a close in about a month, and the coldest of the days should be behind us at this point. Here in Indiana, El Nino usually points to a warmer, drier kind of winter. With the past El Nino being considered one of the strongest on record, how much did the warm…Read more about Weather Update Winter 2016[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 about Powdery Mildew of Cucurbits[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 about Organic Powdery Mildew Control[Read More]
In December 2015 I presented a talk at the Certified Crop Advisors Conference in Indianapolis titled ‘Specialty Crops of Indiana’. The information gathered for the talk was so interesting that I thought I would share it with all the Vegetable Crops Hotline readers as well. Data Sources. Information used to compile this article has been…Read more about Vegetables: An Overview of Production and Economic Significance in Indiana[Read More]
In November 2015 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published the final version of Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption, otherwise known as the Produce Rule, in the Federal Register. Sixty days later, in January 2016, the rule became law. The Produce Rule is one of several new…Read more about The Produce Rule is Here![Read More]
How many times have you had to explain to a customer how to select, prepare or store a product that you have grown and are offering for sale? Did you ever wonder if more shoppers might buy your product if they had a clear understanding of how to prepare it? How many of us would…Read more about FoodLink is NOW READY for Your Use[Read More]
If you are an organic grower and use manure and compost, you might be interested in spending a few minutes to participate this survey conducted by University of California-Davis, The Organic Center and Organic Trade Association. The purpose of the survey is to characterize the use of manure and compost based soil amendments. Results from…Read more about Survey about the Use of Manure and Compost[Read More]
If you received a hard copy of the Midwest Cantaloupe Variety Trial in Southwest Indiana-2015 at the Southwest Indiana Melon and Vegetable Growers Technical meeting in December, 2015, please note there was a mistake in Table 3, the firmness and fruit size columns. The corrected version of this report is available at https://ag.purdue.edu/hla/fruitveg/MidWest%20Trial%20Reports/2015/02-01_Guan_Cantaloupe.pdf. We are…Read more about Correction of the 2015 Cantaloupe Variety Trial Report in Southwest Indiana[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 about Upcoming Events[Read More]
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