Managing Vegetable Crops After Bedding Plant Season

The Greenhouse Business

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Fruit quality does become an issue with such crops and the main reason is that night heat is not provided in most cases. Alberta nights even in July are fairly cool, 10C is common. Fruit skin shows cracks like in this picture. It is good idea of provide as much shade as possible. Greenhouse can be shaded and also more leaves are allowed to develop and retained so that fruit is covered.

Other problems reported:

Blossom End Fruit Rot. Basically it is a calcium shortage due to irregular watering practices. Calcium movement to the farthest end of fruit is slowed down. Maintaining good watering practices would help, meaning that don’t go on a wet and dry cycle, instead keep the growing media moist. The problem can be reduced by regularly spraying the leaves and fruits with a solution of calcium chloride or calcium nitrate.
Tops of plants becoming thin and spindly and yellow. This is the result of heavy fruit load on first few clusters. The problem generally disappears once fruit harvest starts from the first cluster. Focus on proper pH management. General environmental issues remain with such crops because greenhouse structures don’t have proper environmental controls. Very warm day temperatures and cooler night temperatures makes the plant too vegetative. Big fruit is set on the first clusters and the top fruit ripens before getting to full size.


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	For more information about the content of this document, contact Shelley Barkley. This information published to the web on August 5, 2008.