Fruit and Vegetable News

Marissa Schuh, IPM Extension Educator, mschuh@ umn.edu Tomato might be the spottiest vegetable we grow – there are many diseases that can cause leaf spots, and they can all look very similar. Some of the diseases are caused by bacteria, some are caused by fungi. This means that some of the same cultural practices may work, but if you are thinking about chemical controls and longer term management, knowing which pathogen you have will be important.   Early blight attacks the oldest leaves first. Photo: Gerald Holmes, Strawberry Center, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Bugwood.org Fungal pathogens We have two fungal diseases we commonly see causing leaf spots in Minnesota – early blight and septoria leaf spot. Early blight is very common. The pathogen survives in crop debris and weeds, then infects plants by splashing up into the foliage. This means that the first part of the plant infected is the oldest leaves. Infected leaves develop brown spots, and if you look closely at these spots,...

Article written by Madeline Wimmer, UMN Extension Educator - Fruit Production Image: A participant in the 2025 Upper Midwest Honeyberry Academy holds out a small handful of honeyberries during harvest.  Last week, growers from the Upper Midwest, Nebraska, and Ohio gathered to learn more about the production of an emerging blue fruit crop known by two main common names: honeyberries and haskap ( Lonicera caerulea ).  Introduction: Honeyberries get their name, not because they taste like honey, but because they originate from the honeysuckle family ( Lonicera spp.). Honeyberries grow well in cold climates as most varieties can survive winter and receive enough chilling hours for production in USDA Growing Zone regions 2–7; although optimal production may decline in regions warmer than Zone 6 or 7.  As a crop, honeyberries have historically been grown in regions of Russia, northern China, and Japan as a processing fruit incorporated into products like jams, wine, and vodka. ...

Annalisa Hultberg Extension Educator, food safety  While not all produce should be washed during postharvest handling, many items need to be washed to remove soil or to hydrocool. It is a best practice use a food-grade sanitizer in bulk tanks of wash water to reduce the potential to spread microbial contamination via the water. If one leaf of lettuce has some bird poop on it, for example, the water will spread it to all the others. The sanitizer prevents that from happening. We know that sanitizers are very effective at inactivating bacteria such as  Salmonella  and  Escherichia coli  O157:H7 that may be present in the water and brought in from the field, hands, compost or other sources. They also can increase shelf life, since the sanitizing agents inactivate bacteria, viruses, spores, fungi and other microorganisms that can lead to degradation of fresh produce in storage.   Read below for instructions on using sanitizer in wash water. If you are looking f...