The August 12th evening was just right for the OSU South Centers Horticulture Field Night where nearly 60 commercial horticulture enthusiasts enjoyed the evening and participated in the annual Horticulture Field Night.
"Many small acreage farms in Ohio are looking to the production of high value horticulture crops to make a decent income from their farms," said Brad Bergefurd Horticulture Specialist at the OSU South Centers. "Plus, a lot of new people are looking into the vegetable, berry, and grape business because of the health benefits from fresh produce. Those that attended this evening were able to learn how they can better grow fruit and vegetable crops for a profit," said Brad.
The Horticulture Field Night was conducted at the OSU South Centers at Piketon, Ohio, where Horticulture Specialists have been conducting research on vegetables, berry crops, grapes, melons and other horticulture crops for many years.
Those in attendance were welcomed by Center Director, Dr. Tom Worley who provided an update of the OSU South Centers programs and touched briefly on recent accomplishments including the other programs that are available at the OSU South Centers. "We have many good people who provide many educational opportunities, like the Field Night this evening, to provide information to help you get started or to help you improve your current business operations," said Tom. Bergefurd then gave an overview of the research and demonstration projects that were being conducted this season and introduced the invited speakers for the evening. "If it weren't for the generous support of our partners and those who fund the research you will see tonight, as well as the growers who contribute to the program, we would not be able to provide these types of educational opportunities and research results to help make our growers more profitable", said Bergefurd.
Participants then made their way to the research fields for tours of the horticulture plots. The first stop was at a drip irrigation demonstration that is in partnership with the Negev Foundation and several Israeli irrigation companies. Company representatives were on hand and demonstrated the latest in drip irrigation technology. At this stop, Bergefurd also taught and demonstrated to growers how to set up a trickle irrigation system. "We are about 10 inches below normal on rainfall for this season, said Bergefurd. If it was not for trickle irrigation on these high value vegetable crops, under conditions like these, yield and crop sales could be severely reduced," said Bergefurd. The OSU staff is drip irrigating about 2 acres of research trials at this site. The water is pumped from an irrigation reservoir and is fed through a series of sand filters then into a two inch header line that takes the water to the field. From this header line, the trickle lines, which run under each plastic mulch covered bed, are connected into the main line. "When you are using a small water source like this, you can cover a fairly large area, but you will need to irrigate the field in several zones," says Bergefurd.
Other stops for the evening included cover crop research trials, a new Ribes trial, the newly established research vineyard, a regional Downy Mildew sentinel trial and, a regional Heirloom tomato evaluation, as well as plasticulture strawberry field trials.
For more information about the Horticulture program at the OSU South Centers and upcoming berry and horticulture programs, visit http://southcenters.osu.edu/hort/ or contact Brad Bergefurd or Maurus Brown at 1-800-860-7232.
