We had six apple cider contest entries for the first year of the combined Indiana Horticulture & Small Farms Conference held at the Hendricks County Fairgrounds in Danville, IN March 3-5. Conference attendees had the opportunity to taste and cast their vote during lunch on the first day of the event. We are thrilled to announce[Read More…]
Pome Fruits
Harvest is in full swing. Watermelons are midway through their run, blackberries continue to ripen up, Pixie Crunches and Honeycrisp apples are beginning to ripen. Pawpaws have another week until maturity for most varieties. Many varieties of grapes are reaching full maturity. The cooler weather, although welcome for our comfort, has caused some crops to[Read More…]
I am hearing from apple growers and my entomology colleagues in neighboring states that the dogwood borer is becoming a more common insect pest to monitor and manage in apple orchards. So, in this issue of Facts for Fancy Fruit, I’ll share some general tips to help you stay ahead of this damaging fruit tree[Read More…]
Making the decision on when to harvest can be a very tricky and complicated issue. The longer you intend to store the fruit, the more precise your timing needs to be. For summer apples, most growers only intend to store fruit until their higher quality fall apples come on stream, so storage times beyond a[Read More…]
Recent cooler weather has provided relief from July. Despite optimum conditions for fungal and bacterial disease, fireblight pressure has fortunately waned as August progresses. Japanese Beetle numbers have also dropped off dramatically after a second insecticide applied in the second week of July. Blackberries continue to ripen, and will be joined by peaches, plums, early[Read More…]
Hi. As I’m sure most of you have noticed, the Japanese Beetles have arrived. We have been dealing with them in every fruit crop with the exception of our apples. The blackberries are currently being consumed by them despite a well-timed spray last week. Fire blight continues to show up in our orchard. We are[Read More…]
For those growing apples with organic or “softer” pesticide programs, you might spot signs and symptoms of a hungry caterpillar that prefers to attack apple leaves and fruit: the redbanded leafroller (Figure 1). This particular apple pest is more often a problem in orchards where conventional insecticide sprays are not used. This season, I have[Read More…]
Hi! Small fruits are beginning to ripen here. Raspberries are in full swing, our earliest blackberries have 1 or 2 ripe fruit, and a few plums are ready. Pest wise, we have been seeing damage from moth larva on a few of our plums. Things are going well otherwise. We are continuing to remove trees[Read More…]
Hello! It’s been a wet and cool couple of weeks. Sprays in both the orchard and vineyard have been pushed back because of this and our limited time frame for planting vegetable crops. Hopefully we can get back on schedule this week. It has been ideal weather conditions for some fungal pathogens, so we will[Read More…]