Fruit and Vegetable News

  Article written by Madeline Wimmer , UMN Extension Fruit Production Educator. Apples  Apple sales are starting at the farmers market in southern Minnesota Variety highlight: First Kiss, and dealing with fruit drop Article: How to Determine Apple Ripeness: Starch, Firmness, and Brix Testing Grapes Table grape harvesting tips Variety highlights: Reliance and Mars Help us grow the Fruit Update series! What’s working? What do YOU want more of? This is our annual request for your support of the UMN Fruit Update series and other articles by taking our short evaluation to let us know what you’ve enjoyed and what you want to see more of in the future!  Take our quick survey: UMN Fruit and Veg News Annual Eval You can also take the survey directly through our newsletter article: Share you thoughts on this newsletter  Our newsletter is only a success because of readers like you, and we greatly appreciate your feedback!  Apples  Apple sales are starting at the farme...

Authors: Bill Hutchison, Eric Burkness, Lu Yin, and Matt Clark. The foliar form of Grape Phylloxera (GP) is quite common throughout Minnesota and most eastern grape growing regions of the U.S. Although we have experienced a late spring so far this year, the first grape leaves for most hybrids have started to appear; this is a good time to begin monitoring for the “yellow crawler” stage of GP, as the crawlers hatch from their “mother” galls (including a female with several eggs, Fig. 1). Grape Phylloxera Life Cycle In brief, the GP life cycle is quite complex, with galls formed on both root and foliar portions of the vine. However, given the genetic background of the cold-hardy grape hybrids in the Midwest region, the primary potential for damage is the presence of foliar galls formed by GP. Much of this information is taken from a recent publication by one of our graduate students in Horticultural Science, Lu Yin (Yin et al. 2019; see full citation below). Fig. 1. Mature grape ph...