Commercial Vegetable Crops at ISU Hort Extension

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This site will inform you of Iowa's vegetable production techniques and associated conferences, workshops, and field days. The links in the left column will direct you to individual vegetable fact sheets, progress reports, and cultural tips. Direct your questions to Dr. Henry G. Taber, extensionvegetable specialist: taber@iastate.edu

 

UpComing Field Days, Meetings

July 15 - High Tunnel field day, southwest Iowa at Armstrong Farm, Lewis, IA. Contact Linda Naeve at lnaeve@iastate.edu

December 4 - IA-IL Fruit/Veg Symposium, Bettendorf, IA. Contact Patrick Omalley at omall@iastate.edu

January 29-30, 2009 - Fruit and Vegetable winter conference, Marshalltown, IA. Contact Dorothy Lewis at ifvga@q.com.

 

 

 

 

Flood Damaged Produce - Options?

1. Common sense indicates you shoud not harvest and sell any crops that were under flood waters, even if only for a few hours. The risk of pathogenic organisms is too high. Examples = leafy greens (lettuce, spinach, herbs, etc.); root crops (radishes, carrots, beets, baby or new potatoes, etc.); cole crops where head has formed (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli); fruited crops ready to harvest (summer squash, green beans, cucumbers).

Be sure to follow good packing shed guidelines and product sanitation. For useful, practical information you can download for free: Food Safety Begins on the Farm publication from Cornell University from this site - http://www.gaps.cornell.edu/FSBFEng.html

2. Possible future harvest, if the plants survived = fruited crops that will produce in the future, particularly those grown on plastic mulch (tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, sweet corn, etc.) and those that were just planted earlier in the month as winter squash and pumpkins.

3. Re-plant considerations = when ground is ready to work disk or rotovate to control weeds and consider the usual double crop options as: cucumbers, peppers, snap beans, fall production of broccoli and cauliflower, etc. For futher cropping information check the Midwest Vegetable Production Guide for 2008 by clicking on the tab in left column.

4. As considerable N was lost consider sidedressing those crops still in the vegetative and fruit bulking stage of growth with 35 to 45 lbs of N per acre, i.e. sweet corn, green beans, peppers, tomatoes, etc.

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