Once flowers open in the spring, we’re hoping for warmer weather so the bees will transfer pollen and for rapid pollen tube growth. As we all know, apples require cross pollination, so for example Golden Delicious pollen will not fertilize Golden Delicious flowers. We rely on bees and other insects to transfer pollen from one…Read more about Pollination – a refresher[Read More]
Pome Fruits
We’re getting close to the time when growers need to make chemical thinning decisions – for many the most perplexing and risky decision they will make all year. This is usually a tricky call to make, even more so when we have had spring frosts. Luckily in most places the spring frosts have not been…Read more about Chemical thinning[Read More]
Welcome to our second update of crop conditions this season. Since the start of the month, our peach trees and plums have bloomed. The hard frosts we had out here last week killed many of those flowers as shown in the plum photo. They still have more yet to open, so not all is lost!…Read more about Crop conditions[Read More]
Learn about tree fruit management from Dr. Peter Hirst, Purdue, and disease management from Dr. Melanie Lewis Ivey, The Ohio State University, on Wednesday, April 30th at 6:30 PM at Kercher’s Sunrise Orchards (19498 CR 38 Goshen, IN 46526). To register, call 574-533-0554 or email Mark Evans (mevans@purdue.edu).
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 about Crop Conditions[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 about Crop conditions[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 about Crop conditions[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 about Crop conditions[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 about Crop Conditions[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 about Crop conditions[Read More]