Welcome to Spring! Things have begun to green up here at Meigs as we’ve had some warmer weather and plenty of rain. Consequently, this week has been a push to make our first-of-season herbicide and fungicide applications in the orchard. Though we breached 80F a couple times already, our fruit trees and brambles do not[Read More…]
It’s been a fruitful year here at the Meigs Horticultural Facility in Lafayette, Indiana. We are now harvesting primocane blackberries, most all grapes, early season apples, and on our fourth harvest of watermelons. The harvest so far has been plentiful and the just most delicious fruit across the board! Pears and paw paws are a[Read More…]
Things are continuing to ripen up around Meigs. Apples and pears are coloring, some of the early grape varieties will be ready for harvest here in a week or so. Many watermelons are up to size and maturing. The first flush of primocane blackberries will be ripening over the next week. Yellow plums are ripe[Read More…]
What a wet July we have had so far.. and summer for that matter! The timing and amount of rain has made it difficult to complete cover sprays in a timely manner. Even with all of this rain and limited spray windows, all of our fruit crops have remained disease free. Our peaches and blackberries[Read More…]
Here at the Meigs Horticulture Facility in Lafayette, Indiana we couldn’t ask for better crop conditions. We have been receiving good amounts of rain as needed for fruit maturation, without experiencing any flooding. The Japanese beetles seem to be our biggest issue right now across the board. Still no disease pressure to report, we will[Read More…]
Dear readers, I have never been so excited to sort through trap catch from spotted-wing drosophila (SWD) monitoring traps (Figure 1A) as I have these last few weeks!! And it’s not just because I’m a bug nerd over here, ha! This season, as I’ve been looking through the contents of SWD jar traps, I’ve seen[Read More…]
Tissue analysis is the most reliable means of determining plant nutritional status. Combined with soil testing, tissue analysis can help pinpoint the source of problems and determine what measures may be needed to ensure proper nutrition of the crop. Tissue analysis samples should be collected at the appropriate time to give the most meaningful results.[Read More…]
All of our crops at the Meigs Horticulture Farm in Lafayette, Indiana are maturing very nicely. The warm nights have helped fruit size up in the last two weeks. We have seen high thrip populations on all fruit trees, although they don’t seem to be doing much damage. This week the Japanese beetles decided to[Read More…]
I’m hearing that thrips are throwing many of us for a loop this season! Some of you may know that thrips do not overwinter here in Indiana, so each spring season they migrate up our way on winds blowing up from the south. Sometimes these southern winds occur earlier or later each spring, depending on[Read More…]