Cooperative Extension Service
College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
The University of Georgia
George Boyhan, Extension Horticulturist-Vegetables
East Georgia Extension Center
Rosenwald Building, Third Floor
PO Box 8112
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, GA 30460
912-681-5639 | 912-681-0376, Fax | 912-682-3481, mobile
Last notice to attend the Georgia Organics Winter Conference. Georgia Organics will have its winter conference on Saturday and Sunday February 9-10, 2002, at The Lodge at Unicoi State Park in Helen, Georgia.
They will have 25 educational sessions, a trade show, a silent auction, the annual meeting and a banquet dinner. Juli Brussell will be the keynote speaker at the banquet. Her talk is titled "Organics -- Defining Its Roots and Nourishing Its Future." Ms Brussell is an active member of the organic community in southern Illinois. She has a consulting firm called The Farmgate, which specializes in sustainable and organic production. She will also be giving three of the concurrent educational sessions planned.
For more information about the conference, contact Darlene Morris at 706-394-6900 or email to emorris887@hotmail.com or contact Julie Hale at 404-329-0682 or email to mudpup58@cs.com. You can also check out their web site at www.georgiaorganics.org, which has more detailed information about the conference, including a registration form. The registration cost is $80 for members and $100 for non-members. The banquet is an additional $15 or $18 for members and non-members, respectively.
Now is the time for growers to start thinking about their spring transplants if they haven't already. Many vegetables lend themselves to transplant production and offer some real benefits. Among the benefits are earliness in production, better stand establishment, more uniform stands and possibly avoiding some insect and disease problems.
The lists below contain additional information. The first is a list of commercial transplant producers. If your growers are looking for transplants, these are the folks to contact. The second lists some vegetables, the amount of seed needed to produce a set number of transplants, and the number of weeks to produce them.
| Plant Growers 2002 | |
| H.C. (Heck) Dodson,
Philip Grimes DOCIA FARMS (field) 629 TyTy-Omega Road Tifton, GA 31794 229-382-3872 |
Alex Hendry (green/field) VALDOSTA PLANT CO P.O. Box 74 Cecil, GA 31627 229-896-2060 |
| Seaborn Roddenbery GRADY GREENHOUSES (contract) 2426 Hwy 111 South Cairo, GA 31728 229-377-6252 |
Johnny Veazey (green/field) VEAZEY PLANT CO 231 Belflower Rd Tifton, GA 31794 229-382-6443 |
|
Patrick Mobley |
Bucky Parker PIEDMONT PLANT CO (field) P.O. Box 224 Albany, GA 31703 229-425-0766 |
| Bill Brim, Ed Walker LEWIS TAYLOR FARMS INC (green) P.O. Box 822 Tifton, GA 31793 229-382-4454 |
R & K GREENHOUSES Kay Usher 4551 Hwy 178 Lyons, GA 30436 912-565-0529 |
| BONNIE PLANT FARM RR 3 Union Springs, AL 36089 334-738-3104 |
Melvin Mathis MGM PLANT FARMS 1011 Hilltop Drive Tifton, GA 31794 |
| Joe Fletcher FRESH FARM Box 1453 Americus, GA 31709 912-924-4744 |
Jeff Stanley NEW BRANCH GREENHOUSES Lyons, GA 912-526-3466, 912-282-6601 888-245-2747 (pager) |
| Amount of seed required to produce vegetable transplants and number of weeks for production.Z | |||
| Vegetable | Plants/oz of seed | Seed for 10,000 transplants | Time required to produce transplant (weeks) |
| Broccoli | 5,000 | 2 oz | 5-7 |
| Cabbage | 5,000 | 2 oz | 5-7 |
| Cucumber | 500 | 1.25 lb | 2-3 |
| Eggplant | 2,500 | 4 oz | 5-7 |
| Muskmelon (cantaloupe) | 500 | 1.25 lb | 4-5 |
| Pepper | 1,500 | 7 oz | 5-7 |
| Squash | 200 | 3.25 lb | 3-4 |
| Tomato | 4,000 | 3 oz | 5-7 |
| Watermelon | 200 | 3.25 lb | 3-4 |
| ZFrom Knott's Handbook for Vegetable Growers, 4th ed. There can be quite a bit of variability in seed size, so check yoiur specific varieties carefully. | |||
Triploid production has been increasing in Georgia as well as throughout the southeast. I had the opportunity to attend the Watermelon Research and Development Working Group at the recent American Society for Horticultural Science Southern Region Conference.
We spent half a day going over watermelon variety trials throughout the southeast. Of course, everyone wanted to report on triploid varieties and many had them evaluated in separate trials.
Most of the triploid varieties that have been available are Crimson Sweet types (round striped melons, 15-20 lbs). Quality on these melons is very good and a solid market has developed for them. The one drawback to these varieties is they are highly susceptible to Fusarium wilt. Apparently the parent material used to develop these varieties had a high degree of Fusarium susceptibility.
There are long triploid melons that are now being offered by the seed companies. Varieties such as Freedom and Revolution from Sunseed fall into this category. Other companies are also beginning to offer them. I realize growers in Georgia at this time have not grown many if any of these long triploids but, from what I heard at the Working Group meeting, many chain stores are asking for the long triploids. I think the market will rapidly adopt these melons and I encourage you to recommend to your growers that they try them on a trial basis.
From My DeskIt has been a busy month since coming back from Christmas break. We had the GFVGA Conference in Savannah, which was the largest ever. The venue had changed to the Civic Center from the Hyatt to accomodate everyone. Shuttles ran from the host hotels to the Civic Center all through the day, which minimized any inconvenience. Winter School at Rock Eagle and the ASHS-SR meeting in Florida both took me away from home overnight as well. Talk to you next month.