July 14, 9:00 am – 3:00 pm Jacobs’ Family Orchard 4676 North 75 West New Castle Indiana 47362 https://jacobsfamilyorchard.com The summer tour for Indiana fruit and vegetable growers will be held on Friday July 14 at Jacobs’ Family Orchard near New Castle, IN. While primarily apple growers, growing over 30 cultivars, The Jacobs family also[Read More…]
Peter M Hirst
Facts for Fancy Fruit Editor & Professor of Horticulture
Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture
Area(s) of Interest: Commercial Tree Fruit Production
Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture
Area(s) of Interest: Commercial Tree Fruit Production
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. Remember that only about 5-10% fruit set is usually enough for a full crop. In other words, 90 out[Read More…]
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…]
Something happened when the calendar switched from March to April. Spring finally sprung. As we discussed in the last issue of FFF, spring temperatures are so important because the rate of crop development in the spring is directly related to how warm it is. Here in Lafayette, April average temperatures have been in the 50s[Read More…]
Dear Indiana Horticulture Society Member, We as a society have some decisions to make and I feel that these could really make us stronger as a whole. During our wrap up meeting at this years Hort Conference, there were many views and ideas shared with the group. The general consensus was that this organization does[Read More…]
With apples over an inch in size, we traditionally consider that the window for hand thinning has closed. At this point, it’s unlikely we’ll see a thinning response either in terms of fruit size or in flower initiation for next year. But there’s still a good reason to consider some hand thinning. Many in the[Read More…]
