For over 20 years the pumpkin field day held at the Western Ag Research Station in South Charleston has hosted growers from around the state giving them a wide array of production and pest management research, demonstration, tips, and tricks. Instead of driving over to the research station, participate virtually from your home, business, or favorite coffee house/brewery!
Because of the Covid-19 pandemic, we won’t be able to hold a field day in person this year, but we are working hard to bring you the results of several demonstrations and research projects via a pre-recorded video stream that will air on the OSU IPM YouTube channel on August 27 at 6 PM.
Registration for the virtual event will be necessary so we can send out the viewing links between August 26-27 for the roughly hour-long field day. Please register at the link below by the deadline of August 25 at 8 PM.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/vpumpkin2020
Presentations will include a late-season weed screen including an update on the new Reflex herbicide label from Tony Dobbels; Celeste Welty will talk about managing key pumpkin pests, and Jim Jasinski will give updates on powdery mildew fungicides and on the mustard cover crop biofumigation project.
We are also preparing a video to highlight all of the pumpkin and squash hybrids in the variety trial. As a special encore will be releasing a 3D field-scale model of the pumpkin hybrid trial to allow participants to “walk” around in the field virtually, looking at the foliage and fruit of each hybrid in the trial. Here is a small sample of the 3D environment:
https://mpembed.com/show/?m=h5pvoP8inMs&mpu=454
Brooke Beam will help manage the process by stitching together the short video presentations into one coherent movie which will be approximately 60 minutes long. Contact Jim Jasinski (jasinski.4@osu.edu) for more information or details. Hope to see you on August 27!