By DOUG GRAVES

Ohio Correspondent

LOVELAND, Ohio — Setting annual crops like corn, wheat and soybeans aside, attendees last week’s Southern Ohio Specialty Crop Conference in Loveland honed in on the idea of adding peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots or pumpkins to their farms.

At this gathering attendees learned about pumpkin production, emerging orchard pest problems and their management, spray applications, diseases in cucurbit crops, managing insecticide rotations, pepper diseases, soil-borne strawberry diseases and much more.

But OSU extension specialist Greg Meyer offered a few warnings to attendees during his talk entitled “How Healthy are Your Farm’s Finances.”

“Some farms that have larger acres of corn, wheat and soybeans do add these specialty crops to add to their farm income,” he said. “Indeed, there is opportunity for more income per acre, but with that comes more risks, more costs and more labor.

“The first challenge for the specialty crop grower is having enough labor to be able to do everything. When you think of all the challenges of tending to a small garden, it’s a big undertaking, but when you magnify that to, say, 10 or 20 acres of cover crops, the task becomes quite big. The appeal with specialty crops is these growers normally aren’t dealing with thousands of acres.”

Most people at this year’s gathering were small-scale producers, working on five acres or fewer. Many of those were planning to grow specialty crops as a means of supplementing their income by selling at a farmers’ market or roadside stand.

“Many get into specialty crops because of the local foods movement,” Meyer explained. “Many consumers want to know who their farmer is, what he’s doing on the farm and where their food is coming from. Plus, for the grower, it’s appealing, as it allows them to live their farm dream by doing this.

“When people come to a conference like this they come to learn about all the diseases pertaining to what they’re growing and all the insects they have to contend with. They find it fun in many ways.

“Sometimes the thing that’s not as sexy but is more important is the financial end of what they’re doing. It’s important to make sure that the operations they’re running are profitable, that they can pay the bills and they’re not buying too much equipment,” he noted. “We look at the balance sheets of farms and some of the ratios that come along with that to understand these farm finances.

“Things can get expensive fast. We know how much we are able to spend in a garden setting, but someone who, say, is putting in an acre of apple trees might invest $10,000. One ends up with a huge investment in a small area. The secret is getting one’s money back out of it, so the key is to not invest too much.”

Meyer said new producers of specialty crops want the biggest and best, when they could get away with smaller and used equipment. “I tell people in any operation, particularly these small operations, it’s a step-by-step process.

“I compare it to building subdivisions. You don’t build every house in that subdivision the very first day, but you better know where the houses are going to be and what your plan is so you can go at it one house at a time.”

OSU extension educator Brad Bergefurd spoke about foliar and soil fertilizers, as well as commercial pawpaw production in Ohio. Dr. Sally Miller discussed tomato and pepper disease management, as well as mildew in cucurbit crops.

Plant pathologist Dr. Melanie Ivey tackled the problems with apple fruit rot diseases while OSU entomologist Dr. Luis Canas discussed integrated pest management on high tunnels.

Dr. Celeste Welty, OSU entomologist, spoke about managing corn earworm in sweet corn and emerging orchard pest management.