On February 9, 2023, Purdue Extension will host the Northwest Indiana Vegetable Series. Pests and diseases present challenges for vegetable producers. This program is designed to give growers the knowledge to manage these and improve their production. This will be a half day program held at Gelsosomo’s Pizzeria in Valparaiso and Unity Gardens in South Bend.[Read More…]
In April we announced a new bulletin “Scheduling Fall and Winter Vegetable Production in High Tunnels”, available from the Purdue Education store at https://edustore.purdue.edu/item.asp?Item_Number=HO-330-W . With the fall/winter high tunnel season underway we are now announcing it again. The publication brings together information collected on farms and research stations in Indiana and Ohio to provide[Read More…]
The Midwestern Regional Climate Center recently released a freeze date tool. It makes it easy to find historical temperature information that may help growers plan. This article provides a quick introduction to the tool. Many readers are familiar with the average first fall frost and last spring frost dates, and the frost-free growing season between[Read More…]
PCNB fungicides include Blocker 4F® and 10G®. PCNB is an acronym for the chemical pentachloronitrobenzene. In Indiana, PCNB fungicides are used for bottom rot, club root, and wirestem in brassica crops. Brassica crops for which PCNB products are labeled for include: Broccoli, Brussels sprout, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, kale, kohlrabi, and mustard greens. Be sure to[Read More…]
Row covers are used in plasticulture strawberry production for winter protection. There is also interest in using row covers to encourage fall growth. The different purposes of using row covers affect when farmers should consider applying the row covers, and what type of materials best meet these goals. At Strawberry Chat on Plasticulture production, Brad[Read More…]
5I have heard concerns about the size of strawberry plants this year. To provide a timely update of crop status, we created a blog site where there will be frequent updates of plasticulture strawberry status across Indiana. If you are interested in learning the current crop status, please visit this site https://www.purdue.edu/hla/sites/guan/blog/. We saw a[Read More…]
Chance for above-normal precipitation in about 2 weeks, but for this time of the year, that doesn’t mean much. Freezing temperatures and even some snow fell in Indiana earlier this week forcing us to accept that winter is coming. Figure 1 shows how much colder than normal those minimum temperatures got early Tuesday, October 18th.[Read More…]
The dinner meeting will take place on November 29, 2022. We will discuss the future of the Southwest Melon and Vegetable Growers Association and have a presentation about the 2022 watermelon variety trials. The portion of the meeting concerning SWIM future will begin at 5 pm. Dinner will be served at 6 pm. The variety[Read More…]