For the past 16 years, the Middle Tennessee Research and Education Center in Spring Hill has been holding their Fruits of the Backyard field day, where they provide timely information for growers and extension agents to better manage fruit crops in your backyard or an even larger space.
Lee Maddox: Home grown fruit Welcome and hello again everyone for Tennessee home and Farm Radio. I'm Lea Maddox
Julie Head: Always important to kind of see innovations that they're making in this industry.
Lee Maddox: For the past 16 years the Middle Tennessee Research and Education Center in Spring Hill has been holding their Fruits of the Backyard Field Day where they provide timely information for growers and extension agents to better manage fruit crops in your backyard or even larger space. One of the presenters Natalie Bumgarner UT Extension Consumer Horticulture Specialist
Natalie Bumgarner: It works whether you've got a couple bushes in your backyard for personal consumption or whether it's a small commercial grower thinking about how to do direct market and high value sales here for fruit crops.
Lee Maddox: The primary focus of the Fruits of the Backyard Field Day was on blackberries and blueberries and longtime UT Fruit Specialist says
David Lockwood: What we're looking at it with blackberries that there are a lot of different ways we can grow. Not the one way is not necessarily the right way for everybody. But it's a viable crop for this part of Tennessee. But we've got some challenges this year is a special challenge cold injury for example.
Lee Maddox: Dr. Lockwood is considered one of the top specialists in the country when it comes to fruit and nut production. And he enjoys sharing his research
David Lockwood: And I look forward to it every year because for me, it's fun. It's kind of a way to show off some of what we're doing. You know, the more people we can make aware of the work that we're doing better we're doing our job
Lee Maddox: Julie Head of Montgomery County was attending the field day to get more info for her farm's brand new orchard
Julie Head: Being here be able to see what it looks like and get my hands on some of these plants. I'm seeing some of the varieties that we actually planted in our orchard and learning some techniques from irrigation to fungicides and insecticides and things like that that I could be using and kind of just the best ways to make my plants the healthiest
Lee Maddox: And for Tennessee Home and Farm Radio I'm Lee Maddox
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