Strawberries and Caneberries

I've been included in a very nice article written by Robert McCarthy of AgAlert, who includes my, along with a who's who of the industry, comments describing the unusually early start to our strawberry year, not only in the Watsonville-Salinas axis, but also Oxnard and Santa Maria. Volume is way up, but the…

The Salinas Watsonville growing region was beset by significant amounts of rain this past weekend, so it was time to go out and have a look.  It's tough to see this, since while the crews are out picking as they have been for about a month, the fruit is being thrown away rather than put into clamshells…

All are welcome to attend the Third Annual Strawberry Commission Production Research to take place this coming April 24 at the Santa Maria Inn in Santa Maria. I'll be presenting there with a large number of my colleagues, lots and lots of information to be shown and discussed.Flier, in English and Spanish,…

Blackberry growers should note that the moderate rains taking place in ambient temperatures of 65 to 75 degrees F as is common in February and March on the Central Coast are excellent conditions for outbreaks of downy mildew. Downy mildew is caused by the fungal pathogen Peronospora sparsa. …

This was published back in 2008, but even though I haven't had a call on this for a while, it's still good to have posted here: Raspberry sawfly, Monophadnoides geniculatus, is an uncommon pest in raspberries on the Central Coast of California. I recently had a question concerning this pest,…