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
Georgia Organics, Inc., will be hosting the Georgia Organics Conference February 9-10, 2001. The event will be held at the Savannah Rapids Pavilion in Martinez, Georgia. This is near Augusta. There will be a pre-conference workshop at the Country Plum Farm in Harlem, Georgia, which will feature production of Grade A dairy goat milk and cheese. This will be on Friday February 9 from 9:30 a.m. until 12 noon.
There will also be a concurrent pre-conference farm tour at the Boggs Organic Garden from 10 a.m. - 12 noon on Friday February 9. for more details on this tour, contact Georgia Organics, Inc.
A cooking demonstration with Chef Heinz Sowinski is scheduled from 2:30 p.m. until 3:30 p.m. on Friday February 9 at the Savannah Rapids Pavilion. The first session of the conference also begins at 2:30 p.m. Friday with "Building Healthy Soils: Part A." The day's events culminate with an evening reception and the opening of the trade show from 6:15 p.m. until 7:15 p.m.
Events on Saturday begin at 7:15 a.m. with a discussion of current issues affecting the health of family farms. Sally Fallon, author of Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, will give the keynote address. The address will occur during the luncheon. The sessions end on Saturday at 4:45 p.m.
The deadline for advance registration is January 9, 2001. The registration fee is $55 for Georgia Organics, Inc., members and $75 for non-members. Late registration is $75 for GO members and $95 for non-members.
The pre-conference workshop is $12 for GO members and $17 for non-members. The pre-conference tour is $4 for GO members and $6 for non-members. The keynote luncheon is $8 for GO members and $12 for non-members.
For detailed information and a registration form, contact Jane Yahnke at 2755 Poplar Lane, Cumming, GA 30041 (Fax/phone: 770-205-2782) or visit the Georgia Organics web site by clicking on the link in the first paragraph.
The 2001 Fruit and Vegetable Winter Conference will be held January 4-7, 2001, in Savannah, Georgia at the Hyatt Regency. This year's conference will be held in conjunction with the 10th Biennial Southeast Blueberry Conference, the Southeastern Peach Conference, the Georgia/South Carolina Roadside Market Conference, the Georgia/South Carolina Strawberry Growrs Conference, the Georgia/South Carolina Muscadine Growers Conference, and the Georgia/South Carolina Wine Grape Conference.
The general session Saturday morning is schedued to have Senator Zell Miller of Georgia, Congressman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Congressman Sanford Bishop of Georgia give speeches.
This conference has continued to grow every year it is held. The vegetable program should be particularly good, with two days of sessions on a wide range of subjects, including two sessions on Vidalia onions. The onion sessions will have updates from both research and extension service faculty about on-going research.
Winter School is also scheduled for January, with three days of educational sessions January 17-19, 2001. Don't forget to get your registration, housing and meal requests in before the deadline of January 8. Send these to Terri Camp at the Rock Eagle 4-H Center.
I have been working for a couple of years on variety trials with soft neck garlic varieties, which can be successfully grown in South Georgia. Although garlic is not an important crop in Georgia, it is second only to onions in its importance among the Alliums worldwide.
Garlic, of course, is asexually propagated, so all the plants in a field are genetically identical. Recently, there has been a growing interest in doing more research on developing new garlic varieties, which is not that easy in light of the fact they are asexually propagated. Work on transforming (genetic engineering) garlic offers a new approach in this area that was not previously available. Regeneration of garlic from tissue culture is currently used in the industry to propagate garlic without latent pathogens. Regeneration is important for successful genetic engineering and can be as limiting to successful transformation as the transformation process itself.
Garlic breeding through more traditional approaches of hybridization are also being explored. It has been difficult to produce viable seed with garlic. Again, if some of the issues associated with this difficulty can be worked out, garlic is fertile ground for breeding work. Developing disease resistance such as no viruses, white rot and rust fungi, and enhancing the nutritional and medicinal value of garlic, could be areas of breeding research.
From My DeskWe've had some cold weather the past few days. For December 20-21, the low temperatures in Alma were 19.7 degrees F and 19.6 degrees F. In Vidalia, they were 18.7 degrees F and 22.2 degrees F; in Midville, they were 18.0 degrees F and 18.9 degrees F; and in Statesboro, they were 15.4 degrees F and 14.5 degrees F. Onions can survive temperatures of 21.2 degrees F and can be killed at temperatures of 12.2-17.6 degrees F, with younger seedlings killed at the high end of this range. I haven't heard about any damage to the onion crop, but it's probably too early to tell. I don't believe the crop was damaged, however, because most of the crop has just been transplanted to final spacing. These plants have had their tops removed during transplanting and are basically in a dormant state due to transplant shock. In addition, soil temeratures at 2 inches have remained above 37 degrees F at all these locations.
Information in this newsletter (garlic story) is from the Alliums 2000 published abstracts, specifically "Garlic Research Emphases and Activities Worldwide" by Ronald E. Voss. The minimum tolerated temperatures for onions are from Onions and Other Vegetable Alliums by J.L. Brewster (published by CAB International in 1994).
Everyone have a happy and safe holiday! See you in the New Year.