Great Lakes Vegetable Show
January 9-11 in Grand Rapids

The 34th annual Great Lakes Vegetable Growers Convention & Farm Market Show will take place Jan. 9-11, 2001 at the Grand Center in Grand Rapids, Mich. These dates are a week earlier than they have been in recent years.

An outstanding education program for vegetable growers and farm marketers is being planned for the coming convention. The program will include vegetable commodity sessions over the three days covering asparagus, pickling cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, slicing cucumbers and melons, onions, potatoes, sweet corn, pumpkins and hard squash, and celery. For farm marketers, there will be morning and afternoon sessions on Wednesday and Thursday covering a number of topics and featuring many people involved directly in retail farm marketing.
A number of general and specialty topics are also included in the education program. These include sessions on marketing, vegetable ICM systems and organic crop production. There will also be a session on cut flower production featuring researchers from Michigan State University and North Carolina State University, as well as people directly involved in this specialty crop enterprise.

Another feature of the education program will be a daylong plasticulture workshop on Thursday of the convention.

In addition to the education program, the convention’s trade show is expected to have more than 175 exhibiting companies that will fill two exhibit halls. A wide range of products and services used by vegetable growers will be on display. There will also be an area for farm market exhibitors in one of the exhibit halls.

For more detailed information on the educational sessions, use the Internet to visit www.msue.msu.edu/vegetable/Convention2001/2001.htm. For more convention information, contact Dave Smith at the office of the Michigan Vegetable Council by phone (734) 848-8899 or e-mail miveggies@wnol.net.