The Western Pennsylvania Vegetable and Berry Grower's Seminar is scheduled for 8 a.m. Nov. 16 at the Butler Days Inn.

As always, the meeting features excellent local and regional experts speaking about vegetable and berry growing and marketing. It also includes a trade show consisting of major regional suppliers, seed companies and others. There will be morning and afternoon sessions on vegetable production along with a concurrent morning session focusing on food safety certification and marketing and a concurrent afternoon session on strawberry growing.

One pesticide license category 03 credit is available in the morning vegetable production session and there will be two core credits and two category 03 credits in the afternoon session. The afternoon berry growing session will include two category 02 credits.

Specialty crops and techniques are featured this year with panels of successful growers discussing practical techniques that work to produce sweet corn for the earliest markets.

Beth Gugino, Penn State professor and vegetable pathologist, will review the disease problems of cole crops. Bill Lamont, Penn State Potato and Vegetable Specialist, is speaking on "Growing Potatoes for Retail Sales," while grower Art King will share his ideas on "Making Money with Cole Crops."

The concurrent morning session will focus on producing safe, high-quality produce for retail and wholesale sales. Special guest speaker John McClelland of Paragon Foods will discuss how growers and buyers need to work together to move more local produce into wholesale markets.

In the afternoon berry growing session, Kathy Demchak, Penn State Extension Associate for Small Fruit, will talk about the "Basics of Berry Growing," "Strawberry Weed Control" and "Diagnosing Problems." There also will be a grower discussion of strawberry varieties for Western Pennsylvania.

Registration fee is $40 if received by Nov. 10. Walk-in registration will be $45. The registration fee includes lunch, breaks and all handout materials. Contact the Butler County Extension Office at 724-287-4761 or the Westmoreland County Extension Office at 724-837-1402 for a copy of the program brochure and registration form. Also, you can find the brochure on the websites of the Westmoreland and Washington county offices of Penn State Cooperative Extension at http://westmoreland.extension.psu.edu/ or http://washington.extension.psu.edu/.

If you are involved in, or even just considering commercial production of vegetable or berry crops, you won't want to miss the Western Pennsylvania Vegetable and Berry Grower's Seminar next month.

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.