The temperature may have dropped and there is snow on the ground, but things continue to heat up from the flurry of activity surrounding the Mid-Atlantic Fruit & Vegetable Convention in Hershey, PA. In fact, one exhibitor mentioned that he was particularly impressed with the attendance on Tuesday, the show's opening day. He said he has exhibited at the Mid-Atlantic show for years and never saw so many people make their way through the trade show floor on the first day.

With educational sessions to attend, vendors to visit, and growers to talk to our editors got right to work. Here are some show hightlights.

Maintain Profitability
As profits are the name of the game for all growers, Harold Lloyd, a motivational speaker and businessman of Virginia-based Harold Lloyd Presents!, talked to farm marketers, offering ways to promote positive price perception. “With food,” he said, “people want to pay the lowest price possible. In this recession, price is Number One.”

Lloyd mentioned five “marketing warfare strategies” to help with pricing perceptions.
1. In advertising, always mention price and give the customer a reason why the price is low.
2. First impressions are important. Make sure your billboard is visible and it is accurately communicating your price image.
3. Use signs to talk about low prices. Talking about low prices in this recession is very important. Hand-made signs signify freshness.
4. Have various points of persuasion in the market. For example, have an area in the store where you can sell a few things for $1 each.
5. Educate your employees on prices. Do your best to do price checks to make sure you are staying competitive.

Employ Technology
Another way to maintain profitability is to use high tunnels. These structures not only help with season extension, they also provide crops with protection from the environment, which can reduce the incidence of disease. Several sessions at the conference were dedicated to the use of high tunnels. One of those sessions was presented by Terrance Nennich from the University of Minnesota. Nennich discussed solar heating of the soil in high tunnels for year-round production in the state.

To gather additional details on the use of high tunnels, our editors talked to Keith Cramer of Haygrove Tunnels on the trade show floor. Cramer said he agrees that more fruit and vegetable growers are using high tunnels to extend the growing season and help their bottom lines. Growers, particularly those in the Northeast, are using the tunnels for season extension at the beginning of the season as well as extending the end of the growing season, he said.

“Growers are also getting higher yields of Number One grade produce because you can subtract the rain from the equation,” he explained. For example, too much rain can cause cracking in sweet cherries and in cherry tomatoes.

Haygrove’s Bob Carroll added that small growers are using the technology to feed the locally grown movement. The larger growers, he said, know that they will get a larger packout of Number One grade produce using season-extension technology.

Disease Control
Even though high tunnels help with keeping some of the rain out, growers still need to keep a vigilant eye for disease. Cornell University’s Meg McGrath, an associate professor in plant pathology, provided several pointers to help growers manage foliar diseases in tomatoes and cucurbits. Essentially, she told a packed room that now -- in the winter -- is the time to prepare for upcoming planting season. She gave the growers some “homework” to do during the winter months.

Specifically, she said it is important to determine what diseases might occur, learn the early symptoms of the disease, and determine what needs to be done. To get ready for the coming season, McGrath suggested growers do the following:

1. Look for resistant varieties.
2. Clean and sanitize greenhouses
3. Separate seed lots.
4. Manage humidity and leaf wetness.
5. Use seed that has been tested and treated for pathogens.
6. Inspect your transplants (if you weren’t the one growing them).

She also talked about the steps growers need to take to manage late blight in potatoes. To keep this disease at bay, McGrath told growers to destroy cull potatoes, destroy potato volunteers,join listservs, check newsletters, monitor, scout, and report any findings to Extension.

And for the record, late blight has been rearing its proverbial ugly head for many, many years. Dr. Raymond Samulis of Rutgers Cooperative Extension, in his discussion of the 150 year history of agriculture in the Delaware Valley, said late blight was making headlines in newspapers back in 1852. In 2010, however, we have more tools to use to combat this disease.