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Specialists on the Virginia Vegetable Team are committed to assisting growers, regardless of business size, with obtaining the freshest, highest quality, and most efficiently produced vegetables with the idea of safety and economic viability in mind. Please reach out to your local Cooperative Extension agent and/or vegetable team specialist to answer any vegetable related questions important to Virginia growers. Please click on the specialist’s name to be directed to their university’s webpage. The team routinely conducts applied research, presents information to growers and industry, publishes farmer friendly fact sheets, and works towards training Agriculture and Natural Resource (ANR) Extension agents and governmental employees through in-service trainings to ensure information is disseminated to the masses. Published version

This copy of the 2022/2023 Mid-Atlantic Commercial Vegetable Production Recommendations replaces all previous editions of the Commercial Vegetable Production Recommendations published individually for Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Information presented in this publication is based on research results from the University of Delaware, the University of Maryland, Rutgers - The State University of New Jersey, The Pennsylvania State University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, West Virginia University, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, combined with industry and grower knowledge and experience. This publication will be revised biennially. In January 2023, a Critical Update with important updates for this publication will be communicated through local Extension Agents and Vegetable Specialists. The editors welcome constructive criticism and suggestions from growers and industry personnel who may wish to help improve future editions of this publication. These recommendations are intended for the commercial vegetable grower who has to make numerous managerial decisions. Although the proper choices of variety, pesticides, equipment, irrigation, fertilizer, and cultural practices are the individual vegetable grower’s responsibility, it is intended that these recommendations will facilitate decision-making. Recommended planting dates will vary across the six-state region. Local weather conditions, grower experience, and variety may facilitate successful harvest on crops planted outside the planting dates listed in this guide. This can be evaluated in consultation with the local agents and state specialists. Government agencies and other organizations administrating crop insurance programs or other support programs should contact local Extension agents and/or vegetable specialists for guidance. Not to be used by home gardeners. Published version

Florida’s strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch) production system is mainly dependent on short-day cultivars produced as bare-root (BR) transplants, which are high-yielding and low-cost options for Florida growers. The strawberry industry in Florida is greatly dependent on early yield (mid-November, early December). Therefore, Florida growers must secure rapid establishment of the BR transplants and for that reason, high volumes of irrigation water are applied to reduce air temperature around plant crowns and mitigate desiccation. This practice accounts for nearly 14.7 million m3 of irrigation water between mid-September and early October. Several alternatives are available to growers to reduce irrigation water for establishment. One of those alternatives suggests replacing BR transplants for actively growing strawberry plugs (SPs). However, the higher price of SP transplants seems to be the main limitation for their implementation. Alternately, growers could explore the possibility of introducing intermittent irrigation or low-volume sprinklers into their system to establish BR transplants. An inexpensive option, based on a large body of research, would be the application of crop protectants against excessive sun radiation, which could reduce irrigation water for establishment by up to 30%. Despite the suggested alternatives, there is still a great deal of work needed to increase grower’s confidence in these technologies.

Indeterminate bell pepper (Capsicum annuum) production in Central America under protected agriculture has steadily increased over the last 10 years. The Protected Agriculture Information Network (PAINet) was created in 2009 as a free-of-charge network to assist on research, education, and information exchange among protected agriculture growers in seven countries in Central America and the Caribbean. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of diverse plant densities and pruning practices on the performance of indeterminate bell pepper in commercial greenhouses in Honduras, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic. In Costa Rica and Dominican Republic, treatments were combinations of planting densities and pruning practices. In Honduras, only the pruning practices were compared. The results indicated that pruning has little effect on total marketable yields for indeterminate bell pepper, regardless of the cultivars and planting densities. Similarly, the effects of planting densities on bell pepper total marketable yield were barely measured in all locations, which indicated that the lowest planting densities (26,000 and 27,500 plants/ha) have the lowest investment among all tested densities. Therefore, producing colored bell peppers in Central America and the Caribbean under protective structures may not need pruning for sustainable production, which may save major labor costs. UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Agroalimentarias::Estación Experimental Agrícola Fabio Baudrit Moreno (EEAFBM)