For grower and PCA reference, this sample came into Steve's lab on Monday.  No disease found, and checking with the grower it showed up in the warmest part of the field one day after application of 32 fl oz per acre of Diazinon 2E.  Interestingly, it showed up on the fruit only, not on the leaves or flowers.  Problem is starting to clear, with new incoming fruit looking fine.

If you read the story through the link, there is a great example of confirmation bias and narrative creation concerning a very well-known political consultant's observations that a huge bloom of yard signs in Florida supporting a presidential candidate in Florida before the 2012 election indicated a sure win in the national elections. In fact all the yard signs didn't mean anything at all, because, as everybody knows, the candidate ended up losing by a significant margin.  

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-19/the-alibaba-story-telling-failure

So what was the problem in believing that all those yard signs meant certain victory? As the author of the article writes; “What was the method for measuring those signs? How widespread was this nationally, and more importantly, in swing states? What is the past correlation between numerical signage advantages and election outcomes?”

The political consultant so badly wanted to believe that what she was seeing really meant something that she ignored any sort of empirical approach to the situation which would have provided her information to the contrary.

How can this possibly relate to our business of producing berries?  A lot, as a matter of fact.  Think about how one approaches diagnostics in the field. Evaluate your own attitude when approaching the problem - is there some given outcome that you are carrying around and will blind you to a truly empirical approach to the problem?   Is one's sampling method correct for the issue being evaluated?  What can we make of the problem from the samples we have taken?  Is there a correlation between the samples we take and the problem as a whole? 

Beware the narratives!

Local berry growers should take note that our in-house LBAM person, Neal Murray, notes the following in his twice monthly update tracking LBAM activity in the Monterey Bay area:

"We expect to see peak flight activity very soon.  Continue vigilant scouting and monitoring for larvae.  Mating disruption dispensers should already be in place and thorough scouting should be utilized to look for feeding larvae."

Link:

http://cesantacruz.ucanr.edu/files/157533.pdf

If you are an organic berry grower, you really should be following this advice and putting out the mating disruption dispensers, as your other options are limited.  The dispensers work and are worth the while.

Just doing the usual weekend reading and came across this gem in The Economist:

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21597963-huge-export-industry-battling-survival-two-fronts-yes-we-have-no-bananas

Seems banana producers down south are facing serious challenges from two pathogenic fungi.  One pathogen has become resistant to the fungicide complex used to control it and a strain of the other pathogen has overcome the resistance to it by the most widely planted banana variety.

Not that I would ever be happy about the travails of fellow agriculturists, but knowing that bananas are far and beyond the most consumed fruit by Americans (33 lbs/year well beyond the second place apples at 16 lbs/year), the big rise in price of bananas that this impending disease induced reduction in supply implies means an improved market for berries - which are pretty widely consumed in the USA already.

Interesting stuff.