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,…
3/9/2026 - this is a blog post I wrote back in early 2010, but when we switched over to the new blog presentation system last year it was unfortunately removed from the thread. Still, it's good information to have out in the public domain, so I post it back up again. MarkThere are many causes of…
