- Author: Natalie Solares
- Author: Alexander Putnam
Department of Microbiology and Plant Pathology, UC Riverside
Raspberry (Rubus spp.) is an important crop for California, where it is among the top 20 commodities with an average annual value of $448 million from 2015 to 2017 (CDFA: California Agricultural Statistics Review 2017-2018). This represented 82% to 88% of the domestic raspberry production. The four California counties where raspberry is produced are Ventura, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and Monterey. Specifically in Ventura and Santa Cruz counties, raspberries are among the top commodities (California Agricultural Statistics Review 2017-2018). On the West Coast of the United States, raspberry is typically produced in two stages from a single planting that is grown for a maximum of two years. In the primocane stage or first year cycle, harvest generally begins five months after planting of bare root transplants and continues for approximately three months. After harvest, the primocane growth is pruned near the last fruiting lateral or is mown at the soil line. The growth that follows this pruning begins the floricane stage or second cycle, which has a harvest period that generally begins three months after pruning and can last approximately two months (personal communication Jose Gomez, Driscolls). Fresh market raspberry production in Ventura County is commonly grown on 3 rows of densely-planted raspberries under one plastic hoop tunnel (Figure 1). Raspberries are grown under protected structures, plastic covered high-hoop tunnels to extend the production season and to protect the delicate fruit from direct sun or rain/fog damage. In Ventura County, a crop can be planted during four periods throughout the year: early spring, late spring, mid-summer, or late summer. Main production challenges include limited availability of farm workers, Phytophthora root rot, Yellow rust, Botrytis fruit rot, Spotted wing drosophila, and Two-spotted spider mites (UC IPM online). In 2018, the raspberry industry in Ventura County produced 64,736 tons on a little over 4,000 acres (Ventura County's 2018 Crop and Livestock Report).
Figure. Standardraspberry planting under one plastic hoop tunnel.
Useful Link: UC IPM Online: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/selectnewpest.caneberry.html - UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines: Caneberries. Production Cost Study online: https://coststudyfiles.ucdavis.edu/uploads/cs_public/20/e3/20e339eb-2ea7-41f0-8823-26939ff07c06/bpraspberry-cc-finaldraft.pdf
- Author: Ben Faber
A fig. A yellow fig. A most delicious 'Kadota' fig. A piece of fruit that falls apart easily and shows every nick, scrape and bump.
And it doesn't take much to reduce a fig to something that is not very attractive to a consumer.
There have been all manner of packing materials that have been devised for shipping fresh figs. Nestled in individual packing hollows they can be shipped to arrive in pretty good condition.
'Bursa Black" which is a 1/4 pound fig grown in the Bursa region of Turkey is shipped to large cities in Europe and because of careful fruit selection and packaging, arrives in excellent shape at the delivery point
Some of these shipping containers pack for individual display, making it easy for the seller to keep from damaging the fruit when removed from the container.
The ultimate shipping container that has been developed for delicate fruit is a "suspended tray" container which floats the fruit to its destination. It's somewhat pricey, so the value of the fruit will determine its value to the shipper. A description of the tray using pears and avocados follows:
SUSPENDED TRAY PACKAGE FOR PROTECTING
SOFT FRUIT FROM MECHANICAL DAMAGE
J. F. Thompson, D. C. Slaughter, M. L. Arpaia
Bartlett pears and Hass avocados are subject to transport vibration damage and their susceptibility to damage
increases as the fruit soften during ripening. Firm fruit,greater than 50 SIQ units (13‐lb penetrometer firmness) for
pears and greater than 65 SIQ units (3.0‐lb penetrometer firmness) for avocados, could be shipped in a wide variety of
conventional packages with little transit vibration damage.However softer fruit sustains significant transit vibration
damage when packed in conventional packaging systems and subjected to severe in‐transit vibration conditions common to cross‐country transit in the United States. This study demonstrated that softer fruit was protected from transit vibration damage when packed in a suspended tray packaging system. The study showed that even eating‐ripefruit could be shipped in the suspended tray system with transit vibration damage not significantly greater than nonvibrated control fruit.
http://ucce.ucdavis.edu/files/datastore/234-908.pdf
But hey, an egg carton may work just about as well.