Strawberries and Caneberries

I was called by a local raspberry grower to figure out the situation depicted below. In short, the fruit has split and both the groups of druplets and the receptacle has separated.

I had a great interview the other day with Taylor Chalstrom of JCS Marketing about our burgeoning Fusarium disease outbreak in strawberry. I am more than a little unsettled by the lack of internal industry funding going towards this serious and growing problem.

Me and the grower are of one mind that the brown spots recently showing up on fruit (this is Monterey variety), are from the strong winds we've had for the last four or so days. Makes sense, especially since there is no signs of disease or insects, and above all these spots are fairly firm.

A growing body of research out of Cornell University is showing that low doses of UV light can be quite effective against powdery mildews in agriculture, including Podosphaera aphanis, which challenges strawberry growers every year.

Great article here from Growing Produce about how researcher Hannah McIntosh out in Wisconsin obtained serious reductions in SWD in raspberries by underlaying the crop with plastic mulch (three colors tested: metallic, black and white).