Compiled by Vern Grubinger, University of Vermont Extension
(802) 656-7534, vernon.grubinger@uvm.edu
https://www.uvm.edu/extension/horticulture/commercial
REPORTS FROM THE FIELD
(Hinesburg) Outdoor fall greens and hoophouse greens look good. I expect that the supply of fall greens is up, because wholesale orders are light and fall CSA signups are not where we’d like. October farmstand traffic has been up the past 2 Octobers. Mild weather helps. Winter cutworm damage seems lighter this year, or is it the bed prep, tarping, flaming sequence? No sign of aphids in the hoophouses. Pushed garlic planting back an additional few days this year.
(Rochester) In the spring of 2022 we cut nine hundred of our blueberry bushes down to the crown in the hope of eradicating, or largely eradicating, the stem blights Fusicoccum and Phomopsis which had widely infested our Jersey, Blue Crop, and Blue Ray varietals. For several years we had treated them with lime sulfur in the spring to apparently no effect, so we decided to forego two years of yield in the hope the plants would rebound free of these diseases. It seems to have worked. Most of these plants have responded with strong upright growth that at this stage appears to be very healthy and have now formed what appear to be excellent buds that will fruit next year. Going forward we will probably do the same to other plants that are struggling or stressed as we find them during the pruning process.
(Guildhall) 2023 has been our longest harvest in quite some time. We started October 2, and have been just crawling thru it since. As I write, we've only 2 acres to go, so very nearly done. We started on a 20-acre field of clay that, though it didn't technically flood, had standing water in it most of the summer. The incredible amount of clumpy soil coming up the harvester kept us in first gear the whole way and meant unloading trucks took 2 hours instead of 40 minutes.
Quality was a mixed bag on that field. No rhizoc or scab, but silver scurf on the Soraya, and hollow heart in Soraya, Waneta, and Algonquin chefs. Gold Rush, Peter Wilcox, and Marcy did well avoiding the hollow. Quite a lot of rot in the Waneta on that field as well. On the sandy fields all varieties did significantly better. In particular, for reasons unknown, the Red Norlands this year were the best I've ever grown. On the whole yields were significantly lower than usual. On the clay yields averaged 28,000 lbs, on the sand 35,000 lbs. This is in contrast to our usual averages which run north of 40,000 lbs.
Markets are alright. In general our markets are steady. However we sent samples to the repacker at the terminal, perfect golds, truly perfect. Repacker offered $24 a cwt and he wouldn't budge. I think we need $30 to cover all the extra expenses and flooded acres this year, but watching 120k lbs not get sold because of 6 cents a lb is pretty darn lame.
(Burlington) Nice to have a warmer drier October to wrap up our wet season. On balance, things turned out better than I expected in mid-July, due in part to the favorable conditions. I am interested to see how long we can reasonably store the short-season summer cabbages we replanted after losing all of our storage cabbage in the field.
While we had Brussels sprouts survive flooding, they were set back enough that a large number of them did not size up enough. Grandevo seems to be keeping our modest cabbage aphid population under control. Replanted carrot and beet crops have been great, and we harvested almost all of them out without significant loss to deer. Winter greens look good in the tunnels, though we are struggling with some aphids in our herbs and kale.
Sales have been solid for our winter CSA shares, despite our advertised reduced offerings. Somehow less butternut, fewer and smaller cabbages, and a reduced portion of root vegetables isn't deterring our signups. Summer CSA shares finished strong with a lot of high-quality October crops. I am curious to read the results of our summer CSA survey and see how our membership thought things turned out.
AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING UPDATES
Andy Chamberlin and Chris Callaham, UVM Extension
Now that the season is slowing down it’s a good time to think about remotely monitoring your greenhouses or coolers so you can spend a little more time by the wood stove and less time out in the elements checking on things. Our blog post on this topic highlights some of the options to meet this need, see http://go.uvm.edu/monitoring.
Fall is also a great time to start thinking about upgrades and improvements for the next year. If you are considering a wash pack upgrade, we have over a dozen post harvest case studies from small to large scale operations who've made improvements that worked well for their operations. Read lessons learned, see photos of equipment or videos from growers who shared their projects here: https://go.uvm.edu/phcs
We have 4 new YouTube Videos out which answer your common questions regarding cleaning and sanitizing. We highlight the 4 steps to cleaning and sanitizing. What is an appropriate detergent for farm use? Safely dispensing Sanitizers and how to use sanitizers on a produce farm. See https://go.uvm.edu/agengyt. For additional cleaning resources in various formats visit https://go.uvm.edu/scrubresources
New Episodes of The Farmer's Share Podcast: https://thefarmersshare.com: Paul Chamberlin – Chamberlin’s Garden and Farm Market: EP12. The Naked Acre Farm Home Front - Ryan and Genica: EP13
2023 HIGH TUNNEL CONFERENCE
The "Revitalizing Your Tunnel Vision" conference will be held December 6 and 7 at the Fireside Inn and Suites, West Lebanon, N.H. This conference is for high tunnel vegetable growers and agricultural service providers of all experience levels. Take advantage of this opportunity to fine-tune your high tunnel crop production skills and visit the trade show. Registration is $100 for first farm attendee, $75 for each additional registrant from the same farm. Check out the conference agenda at https://www.uvm.edu/~htunnel/events.html and register online at https://bit.ly/TUNNEL23