Authors: Marissa Schuh Much of Minnesota got some rain in the last week -- from overwhelming barrages in Southeast Minnesota to the first rainfall in months in the Northwest. Much of the state needs the rain , but it is making harvest and storage of longer-season crops much more difficult. One issue we see when it is wet is an uptick in diseases. One we are particularly curious about the UMN right now is white mold . This disease has a wide host range -- it gets into most vegetables we grow, and can get into cut flowers as well. The most distinctive symptoms are what plant pathologists call sclerotia – these structures look like mouse dropping and act as bunkers for the pathogen, allowing it to lay in wait many years until the right conditions and host are available in the future. It can occur in the high tunnel and in the field, in a year like this it is most likely to show up in irrigated plantings. As you harvest brassicas and clean up high tunnels, let us know if you see white mo...
Authors: Natalie Hoidal, Madeline Wimmer, Katie Black, Ryan Harp The current El Niño is likely to be the strongest we've seen in our lifetimes. How can we prepare for it? El Niño events typically get stronger through the fall and peak in the winter and often result in a warmer cold season in Minnesota. For context, the warmest winter on record in MN (2023-2024) happened during a relatively moderate El Niño. A stronger event means that we expect some stretches of notably warmer winter weather. Although warmer conditions could mean less snow cover, it’s possible we won't actually see a drier winter, just precipitation in the form of rain; snow may not linger as long. If we look back to the last El Nino in 2023-2024, the winter was dry, but the following spring was very wet, meaning that we didn’t see lasting impacts of dry conditions in the following growing season. According to Kenny Blumenfeld, MN DNR climatologist, strong El Niño events can result in “active” weather in the fo...