Growth Spurts

In the six years since New York growers began adopting high tunnels — 20-by-100-foot unheated movable plastic structures that can cover 300 plants — tomatoes have been the most commercially successful.
In high tunnels, heat-loving tomato plants that can be trellised vertically and will bear continuously. A 25-pound box of U.S. #1 top-grade tomatoes sells for [...]

Potting mixes custom-tailored to fight plant diseases can work much better than systemic fungicides.
In a test with begonias, scientists found that a mix of peat, compost and the beneficial fungus Trichoderma hamatum strain 382 reduced Botrytis gray mold, caused by the Botrytis cinerea fungus, better than the standard fungicide chlorothalonil did. Botrytis gray mold [...]

Growers can now build and heat a “virtual” greenhouse — or upgrade existing greenhouses — on a computer, to find out how much it would cost to heat with different fuels, heating schedules, heaters, building designs and materials. Developed by Agricultural Research Service researchers with the ARS Greenhouse Production Research Group at Toledo, Ohio, the [...]