The Western Pennsylvania Vegetable and Berry Grower's Seminar is scheduled to run from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Nov. 17 at the Butler Days Inn.

As always, the program features excellent local and regional experts speaking about vegetable and berry growing and marketing, according to Eric Oesterling, extension educator in Westmoreland County.

Also featured is a trade show with representatives of major regional suppliers, seed companies and others. There will be morning and afternoon sessions on vegetable production, along with a concurrent morning session on berry production and a concurrent marketing session in the afternoon. Two pesticide license category 03 credits are available in both the morning sessions, and there will be two core credits and two category 03 credits in the afternoon vegetable production session.

Featured this year are discussions on sweet corn and specialty crops.

Dwight Lingenfelter of Penn State's Department of Crops and Soils department has done extensive work on weed control in sweet corn. Dwight will share his knowledge and discuss the most cost effective sweet corn weed control programs.

Debra Deis of Seedway and Mike Orzolek, Penn State professor and vegetable specialist will discuss new and specialty cole crops and rare and unusual vegetables.

Beth Gugino, Penn State professor and vegetable pathologist, will review the serious disease problems encountered this year and give her recommendations for next year.

In the morning berry growing session, Kathy Demchak, Penn State Extension associate for small fruit, will discuss getting started with blueberries, including blueberry variety recommendations. Demchak also will update growers on new pest management tools.

Mike Ellis, an Ohio State professor and plant pathologist for fruit crops, will cover leafspots, fruit rots and other strawberry diseases, as well as important bramble disease problems.

In the afternoon vegetable session, Celeste Welty, professor and vegetable crops entomologist from Ohio State, will focus on the management of important insect pests of sweet corn. At the same time, in the concurrent marketing session, a panel of growers and buyers will discuss how farmers can take advantage of the strong consumer movement for buying locally produced food products.

Registration fee is $30 if received by Nov. 11. Walk-in registration will be $35. The registration fee includes lunch, breaks and all handout materials. Contact the Penn State Cooperative Extension office in Butler County at 724-287-476 for a program brochure and registration form. You also can find the brochure on the Web sites of Westmoreland and Washington county extension offices at http://westmoreland.extension.psu.edu/ and http://washington.extension.psu.edu/.

This material is submitted by Donna Zang, extension director, and the staff of the Penn State Extension office at the Sunnyview Nursing and Rehabilitation Center complex.