By Jeff Burbrink
Ag & Natural Resources Extension Educator, Purdue Extension Elkhart County

LAGRANGE — LaGrange County is blessed with a large number of produce growers. With our small farms, growing vegetables, fruits and other plants for sale is a good way to earn income on smaller lot sizes.

Jeff Burbrink

One of the biggest struggles with growing produce is when diseases set in. I think most people understand pests like weeds and insects pretty well, but diseases caused by fungi or bacteria or viruses are more difficult to comprehend. After all, the disease symptoms typically do not become visible to the human eye until well after they are established in your patch.

Dan Egel, Purdue’s long time vegetable disease specialist, will be retiring at the end of the month, and for a last hurrah, I invited him to make one last trip to northern Indiana to share his wisdom. He has a knack to make very complex issues like diseases a lot more understandable.

Dan will be at the Clearspring Produce Auction from 7-9 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 25. The address is 2050 S 300 W, not far from LaGrange, Shipshewana and Emma. He will be talking about dealing with diseases, avoiding fungicide resistance and he will share other tips from his 30 plus years of experience.

For those with a Private Pesticide Applicators license, I have arranged for PARP credit to go towards the renewal of that license. The cost for PARP is $10. Otherwise, the program is free of charge.