Agricultural Sciences

Penn State Extension expands resources for growers at produce auctions

Educational materials are displayed at the Penn State Extension kiosk at the Sugar Valley Produce Auction in Loganton in July 2021. The kiosks provide information on production and food safety issues for growers, many of whom are members of Plain communities that don't use technologies to access information online. Credit: Courtesy of Beth GuginoAll Rights Reserved.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State Extension is expanding a program that offers educational kiosks at produce auctions across the state. These kiosks provide growers with timely, relevant information on disease and pest identification and management, invasive species, and food safety.

Beth Gugino, professor of vegetable pathology in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences, and her colleagues on the vegetable, small fruit and mushroom extension team, have guided the development and implementation of this program.

Pennsylvania has 16 wholesale produce auction locations where growers can sell in-season produce, flowers and other goods in bulk to local grocery chains, farm market stores and independent retailers.

This year, Penn State Extension will add three new kiosks to serve a total of 13 auctions across the state, including the Belleville Livestock Auction.

“In the past, buyers would have to go from farm to farm to purchase large amounts of produce, primarily from Amish and Mennonite growers,” Gugino said. “With the auctions, everything is in one place. They are an important market for growers who are not wholesaling directly to large retailers.”

The auctions start in the spring with bedding plants, and some continue to sell products such as pumpkins and Christmas trees into the winter months. 

“A lot of our team members will go to these auctions because it’s a good touchpoint in terms of meeting with growers and getting a sense of the issues in that particular production region,” Gugino said. 

Most of the growers are Amish and Mennonite, she explained.

“This community does not access technology the same way that other growers with broadband access would,” Gugino said, noting that the kiosks provide a way to distribute current information about pest and disease management. 

“The Amish and Mennonite communities play a major role in the vegetable-production industry across Pennsylvania,” she said. “Making sure that they have access to the same information as those who utilize online resources is important to ensure that they can continue to produce crops, not only to support their families, but also to continue to support Pennsylvania's agriculture industry.”

Initial funding for the project came from the Plant Health Resource Center, which is part of the Ag Resource Centers initiative between Penn State and the state Department of Agriculture. Penn State Extension continues to support the endeavor.

Glass-enclosed panels on the kiosks allow information to be displayed and updated easily. Informational pamphlets are available for growers to take home. A few years ago, the team added lending libraries to some of the produce auctions for growers to borrow hard-copy resources. 

Each year, the team designs five or six new posters based on issues they see in the field. This year saw new posters on cucurbit viruses, rust on sweet corn, strawberry crown-root diseases, high-soluble salt levels in high tunnel soils, the Food Safety Modernization Act, and postharvest winter squash rot. The posters are designed to enable the team to update or reuse them as needed.  

“Some topics are relevant for the whole season, while others are only a problem at certain times,” said Bob Pollock, horticulture extension educator based in Indiana County. “We rotate the posters in and out depending on the topic and when it’s relevant.”

Another new feature is the “PA Produce Grower” newsletter distributed every other week that summarizes issues extension educators are seeing on produce farms and greenhouses across the state. The newsletter covers production issues related to insects, diseases and plant nutrition and consists of one sheet of paper with information printed on both sides. Each issue appears on different colored paper to help growers recognize a new edition.  

The resources have expanded this year to include more information on postharvest and food-safety considerations.

“Rather than focusing strictly on pests, we’re including other production-related issues as well,” Gugino said. 
 

Last Updated June 8, 2022

Contact