Fruit and Vegetable News

 As we approach the winter season, this can be a helpful time to dive into literature to support your efforts to build various aspects of your farm management program, including supporting pollinators on your farm.  Pollinators provide a number of benefits to fruit and vegetable growers. They are essential for helping with cross pollination for many fruit crops like apples. For early blooming crops like honeyberries, supporting the right pollinators with other early-blooming plants, can ensure good fruit set for the season.  Supporting pollinators can be done by bringing managed pollinators to their site. This is most commonly done with honey bee colonies. But growers can also support pollinator populations by building, maintaining, and protecting pollinator habitat and resources. The other key step is to protect pollinators themselves by checking in with pest management programs on the farm. This can include following Integrated Pest Management (IPM) best management prac...

In partnership with the Organic Fruit Growers Association and University of Minnesota Extension, a second round of our Fruit Climate Resilience Cohort will be offered this year with cohort dates on December 3rd (remote), December 10th (remote), and January 7th (in-person, La Crosse, WI). If you are a commercial fruit grower who follows primarily organic management practices, we invite you to apple for this opportunity to learn and fund a climate resiliency project to help your farm! Quick link :  Climate resilience program application . For more information, see below.  Background Perennial fruit growers are in a unique position when facing challenges related to extreme weather and climate change because of the inherent fixed nature and longevity of most perennial fruit crops, which remain in the same location for many years rather than being rotated seasonally like annual crops. With the anticipation that fruit growers will continue to face extreme weather conditions and othe...

Annalisa Hultberg, Extension Educator, food safety Orchards and U-picks are welcoming large number of visitors to the farm. When you invite the public to your farm there are additional food safety and liability concerns to consider to keep your customers safe and your risk as low as possible to avoid a foodborne illness outbreak.  Here are some key recommendations to keep your customers safe and healthy this fall.  Photo: Annie Klodd What are the risks? Many bacteria like Salmonella , Campylobacter and E. coli can be spread to fresh produce from animals and sick humans. Viruses like Norovirus and Hepatitis   can easily transmitted between humans via fresh produce and other food, surfaces and the air.  These bacteria and viruses can seriously sicken people, especially the young, old, and immunocompromised.  There have been outbreaks at agritourism farms, especially those that have animals. Take some basic precautions to reduce the potential for these illness...

  Article written by Madeline Wimmer, UMN Extension Educator, Fruit Production All fruit End-of-season newsletter survey and letter from the Educator Apples Did your orchard experience hail this year? Hail netting has its advantages. Cultural management: Encouraging leaf decomposition for managing apple scab Grapes  Article: Late season, occasional insect pests in Minnesota vineyards Honeyberries  Site specific highlight: Fall planting June-bearing strawberries Article: Manage next year’s strawberry weeds this fall All fruit End-of-season newsletter survey A big thank you to those who have taken the time to share their feedback on our newsletter to shape our content for the 2026 growing season! There’s still time to take the survey below.  If you haven’t had a chance to check out the end-of-season letter from the Educator, you can access it through this link to last week’s Fruit update:  A note of thanks from the Educator End-of-season newsletter survey (Share ...

Article updated and reposted by Madeline Wimmer, UMN Extension Educator, Fruit Production Original article by Annie Klodd. Reviewed by Emily Hoover and Jim Luby.  Image: It's normal for a few weeds to be in a strawberry patch during the fall, even with excellent weed control. Photo: Annie Klodd Managing plant competition between June-bearing strawberries and weeds within and between matted rows is one of the most time consuming tasks required. Taking time to be methodical with your weed management approach is well worth it to reduce overall labor efforts, freeing up time for other production tasks.  This article focuses primarily on conventional management practices, but some practices can be applied for Organic and similar managed matted row fields.  Article main points: Follow these four tactics to reduce next year's weeds          Remove weeds before they shed seeds         Cultivate between rows       ...