Jul 13, 2021

Education Field Day, webinars set for small farmers by Purdue University

Small and urban farmers are invited to join Purdue University’s Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture and the Purdue Student Farm for the Small Farm Education Field Day and Webinar series.

The in-person field day will be hosted at the Purdue Student Farm in West Lafayette on July 29. Purdue Experts will lead the following demonstrations:

• Student farm packhouse tour and overview of good agriculture practices (GAPs).
• Weed identification and understanding thresholds.
• Summer cover crops for weed suppression.
• Infield soil diagnostics and soil health.
• Vegetable disease, prevention, identification and management.
• Scouting for mites in high tunnel crops.
• Black soldier fly composting.
• Caterpillar tunnels.

Additional crop demonstrations will include hemp, onion, sweet pepper, eggplant, pepper and tomato varieties in various production systems.

The virtual webinar series will convene from noon to 1:30 p.m. ET on the following days:

• 2: Food safety overviews, value-adding business food safety, fresh produce food safety and good agricultural practices for small farms.
• 4: Landscape planning for the farm, social media marketing, linking markets to production.
• 6: Soil samples, infield soil diagnostics and soil health, making cover crop biomass work for you.
• 9: Control of bacterial spot of tomato using alternative products, perennial weeds management, small-scale onion production and postharvest.
• 11: Field production of specialty melons, high tunnel specialty melon production, vegetable production in raised beds.
• 13: Pathogens in hemp, biological control of hemp aphids, aphid and mite management in high tunnel strawberries.

The full schedule and registration is available online. Contact Lori Jolly-Brown at [email protected] or 765-494-1296 for additional questions.

– Abby Leeds, Purdue University