By Tracy Turner
An updated vegetable production guide for commercial growers in several Midwestern states is now available.
The 2016 Midwest Vegetable Production Guide for Commercial Growers is available for $10 plus tax and shipping and can be purchased at Ohio State University Extension’s eStore, estore.osu-extension.org at go.osu.edu/BKYx. The guide includes management tips from nationally known horticulture experts, including from the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences at The Ohio State University.
The guide is for commercial growers in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota and Missouri and focuses on vegetable varieties, seeding rates, fertilizer rates, weed control, insect control and disease control measures. New this year, the guide also contains information on how to sequence cover crops with vegetable crops, and includes a revised table of post-harvest handling and storage life of fresh vegetables.
The publication includes information from Gary Gao, an OSU Extension specialist and associate professor of small fruit crops at Ohio State’s South Centers in Piketon; Brad Bergefurd, an OSU Extension horticulture specialist; Matthew Kleinhenz, a professor in the college’s Department of Horticulture and Crop Science; Luis Cañas, an Ohio State entomologist and expert on greenhouse ornamentals; Casey Hoy, head of the Agroecosystems Management Program at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center; Jim Jasinski, an OSU Extension educator and integrated pest management specialist; and David Francis, a researcher at OARDC’s Wooster campus and professor of horticulture and crop science.
OSU Extension and OARDC are the outreach and research arms, respectively, of the college. The South Centers also are part of the college.
The guide includes information on:
* Soils and fertility.
* Transplants.
* Irrigation, mulches and frost control.
* Pollination.
* Pesticide information and safety.
* Organic vegetable production.
* Weed management.
* Disease management.
* Slug and snail control.
* Crop recommendations.
The 212-page book also includes an index table to record pesticide applications and written notification for Environmental Protection Agency worker protection standards. The guide also lists contact information for Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota and Missouri pesticide emergency centers and poison control centers and includes some color photos.