Category: Tree Fruit
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Apple scab management this week
By Terence Bradshaw Well, so much for spring. Things sure cooled down this week, with apple trees pretty much parked between green tip and half-inch green bud stage, with a little more advancement in southern parts of the state. The primary scab ascospores that drive the whole disease cycle for the year and overwinter on…
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Scouting workshop May 16; apple season is well underway
By Terence Bradshaw At the UVM Horticulture Research and Education Center (HREC), we hit the green tip bud stage on McIntosh today. This means that, even for orchards with relatively low apple scab inoculum that carried over from last year, disease management should commence any time. Today would have been a great time to put…
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2019 New England Tree Fruit Management Guide available!
By Terence Bradshaw For as long as I’ve been in this fruit business with UVM (1995-present) and well before, the cooperating Extension fruit programs of the New England Universities have collaborated on a management guide for commercial tree fruit growers. That guide has taken numerous forms, but in 2017, we switched a on online-only platform…
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Green tip on apples expected as early as this week
By Terence Bradshaw After a long, drawn-out winter like those from the ‘good old days’, it’s hard to believe that spring often happens pretty quickly. By that I mean that we’ll shift from winter activities when the sleeping trees provide us plenty of time and bandwidth to tend to certain tasks, but when the buds…
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Slightly late, but the return of the UMASS March Message
By Terence Bradshaw The late Dr. Ron Prokopy at UMASS was instrumental in pulling together the “March Message”, an pre-season update on IPM and other topics for tree fruit growers. Dr. Jaime Pinero, the ‘new’ UMASS Extension Entomologist, has revived this valuable tool, which I have attached here. Key take-homes: · Orchard sanitation this spring…
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VBFG Pruning workshops
By Terence Bradshaw This winter, the UVM Fruit Program will hold a number of apple and grape pruning workshops around the state as part of the Vermont Beginning Fruit Grower (VBFG) project. Each workshop will be limited to twelve people so that we may provide time and attention to each participant. The first workshop will…
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Vermont Beginning Fruit Growers Program
By Terence Bradshaw I will be announcing the start of the UVM Fruit Program’s Vermont Beginning Fruit Grower Program (VBFG). This project is funded for eighteen months through a Vermont Specialty Crops Block Grant through the Vermont Agency of Agriculture. There are two primary deliverables for this project. First is an interactive email list that…
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Social Media Workshop at the Vermont Farm Show *Free*
By Terence Bradshaw In 2019, growing your Vermont brand online is more important than ever before. The Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets is offering a workshop to help you sharpen your Social Media marketing skills. Whether you’re making melt-in-your-mouth maple candy, or growing fresh fruits and veggies, learn the latest tips, tricks and…
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New Cornell Orchard-Pollinator Protection Guide available
By Terence Bradshaw The need for adequate pollination is no secret to fruit growers, but recent focus on the status of both wild and managed (e.g. honeybee and certain bumblebee) pollinators refocuses the efforts among all of us to ensure that we are managing our crops sustainably. Tree fruit growers arte in a particularly tricky…
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New England apple Extension survey
By Terence Bradshaw I am working with the other Apple IPM Extension instructors across New England to develop regional programming. We are asking New England apple growers to help us in Extension determine the most effective ways to get you crop management information. The intent of the survey is to determine how apple growers in…