Visitors to Rogers’ Nursery on any given day through the growing season are treated to one of the most beautiful yet understated selections of perennials, shrubs and trees in the region. The Dallas, PA nursery is tucked away and not easily visible from the road, but since operating the business from...

For Bill and Jennifer LaPlant, 24 hours in one day just doesn’t seem enough. While Bill operates LaPlant’s Lawn & Property Maintenance — mowing, trimming, snow plowing and maintaining more than 100 commercial and residential properties — Jennifer runs the couple’s garden center and greenhouse busine...

Perhaps no one truly knows when the ‘everything pumpkin’ craze began, but it’s become tradition for consumers to seek pumpkin flavors, designs and decorations not long after children are back in school. While selecting the perfect, traditional orange fruit is often the highlight of a family’s visit ...

When fruit trees are stressed, so are the growers. Getting to the root of the issues, investigating what went wrong and taking measures to correct the situation can be a lot like solving a crime. There are the usual suspects, but things can get complicated when further insult is added to initial inj...

As the vegetable growing season continues, we know that diseases will start to appear on vegetables, so we must practice constant vigilance to assure that we can control them when they are first noticed. Tomatoes can get two destructive soil fungus diseases — Verticillium and Fusarium wilt — that re...

A quick definition of ambience relates to the character or atmosphere of a place — the quality it seems to have. Ambience is one of five major factors identified with customer satisfaction as noted by Miguel Gomez, a Cornell University researcher, and mentioned by Penn State wine bloggers. Presentin...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s ongoing effort to make the oversight of food safety stronger and more efficient, USDA and FDA announced the alignment of the USDA Harmonized Good Agricultural Practices Audit Program (USDA H-...

A 24-hour hackathon on Friday, June 1 at research location Bleiswijk of Wageningen University & Research, featuring 14 international teams, has determined which five teams will continue in this year’s Autonomous Greenhouses Challenge, organized by Wageningen University & Research. The five winning t...

Toxic Chemical Chlorpyrifos was Banned from Household Use Nearly 20 Years Ago, But is Still Widely Used as a Pesticide on Fruits and Vegetables Exposure to Low Levels of Chlorpyrifos Early in Life Can Lead to Increased Risk of Learning Disabilities, Including Reductions in IQ, Developmental Delay, a...

When Tim and Katherine Clymer constructed a gothic arch high tunnel, they had a unique purpose in mind: to grow figs under cover. Tim has always had an interest in unusual fruits, so when he and his wife Katherine had an opportunity to purchase a farm large enough to pursue this interest and make it...

When Tim and Katherine Clymer purchased their central Pennsylvania farm in 2014, the edges of the property were overgrown and full of weeds. The Clymers’ plan is to eventually work toward organic certification, so they needed to manage the weeds that came with the property as well as limit future we...

Staying diverse has helped Gro-Moore Farms in Rush, NY stay profitable and pass down the family farm to subsequent generations. Jack and Kathy Moore, Jacks’ brother George and his wife Brenda run the circa 1917, 800-acre operation. The farm rents out 600 acres to grain growers, which provides a stab...

There are three main causes of root crop diseases: fungi, nematodes and bacteria. Professor Rob Wick of the Stockbridge School of Agriculture offered tips on preventing, diagnosing and mitigating root crops diseases in his workshop “Root Crop Diseases: from top to bottom” at the 2017 New England Veg...

Christopher Currey, assistant professor of horticulture at Iowa State University, says that with the right strategies, growers can manage light throughout greenhouse production. “Managing photoperiod in the greenhouse is an important factor in crop production,” said Currey. “We want to manage it to ...

Being a good fruit or vegetable grower means becoming a good observer of plants and knowing how the culture, insects, diseases and weather all interact in producing the final outcome as to why the plant doesn’t look or function in a certain way. Diagnosis is the art of recognizing plant problems fro...