The new edition of "Sample Costs to Establish and Produce Fresh Market Blackberries Study" is now available from UCCE. 

http://coststudies.ucdavis.edu/files//2013/09/30/blackberrycc2013.pdf

This is another great cost and return study in berries authored by Laura Tourte, Rich De Moura, Karen Klonsky, and yours truly.   

We certainly weren't in alone in writing this study, and this work could not have been accomplished without the substantial input and contributions from local blackberry growers - thank you all!

The UC Vegetable Research & Information Center (VRIC) will sponsor the UC Soil Fertility Short Courseon Wednesday, October 23, 2013 at the Buehler Alumni & Visitor Center, UC Davis. The short course will focus on the practical aspects of soil fertility management and topics will include  soil testing, interpretation of laboratory soil test results, comparing fertilizer sources, developing crop nutrient management plans, and fertilizer management and environmental protection. The content will be geared toward commercial scale production, and will assume a general knowledge of soil science; this course is not appropriate for home gardeners.

The program is intended for growers, certified crop advisers (CCA), pest control advisers, government agency personnel, and others involved in fertility management planning. Take advantage of the early-bird registration fee ($160.) The fee goes up on Oct. 4 to $190. The registration fee includes lunch, refreshments and study materials. UC Farm Advisors can attend at the special rate of $95. Enrollment limited to 70 attendees.

Cooperative Extension specialists Tim Hartz (vegetable crops) and Stu Pettygrove (soils) are the instructors.

The course is approved for California CCA continuing education credits. No DPR credit available for this course.

More information, visit the VRIC website (http://vric.ucdavis.edu).

I was brought out to the situation in strawberry pictured below.  Yellowing leaves and very little flowering or fruiting.   For whatever reason, the street’s call on this was that it is iron, but to me the youngest leaves being as green as they are (Photo 2 below), is a dead giveaway that it’s not iron, because the youngest leaves in iron deficient plants are the first to yellow, not the last.

No sense standing around arguing about the problem, we just have to roll up our sleeves, get dirty and figure it out! 

The charts below are threefold replicates of sampled leaves and soil of affected plants in the field.

Table 1 : Tissue analysis

Table 2: Soil analysis

So, it looks like the main culprit here is indeed a lack of nitrogen, seeing that at an average of 1.4% it is well under the 2.4% tissue concentration threshold given in the UCCE nutrient guidelines.  Just to be sure though, we should check to see if any of the other nutrients are low, but they are not and everything else is within normal ranges.  I would have some concern about the high levels of sodium (197 ppm) and chloride (7930 ppm), but beyond some marginal burning of the leaves, these plants don’t seem to be exhibiting symptoms consistent with real salt poisoning.

Looking to the soil, sure enough we get confirmation of what we are seeing at the tissue level, and see that nitrates are pretty low here, running at a lean 4 ppm.  I would probably want to bump that up a bit.

This is an announcement for the beginning of a series of meetings to run through the upcoming strawberry season concerning the principles of successful strawberry cultivation on the Central Coast of California.  The first of these meetings will be a review of strawberry transplanting and will take place at the ALBA Rural Development Center on 1700 Old Stage Road on October 8. Agenda is here:

http://cesantacruz.ucanr.edu/files/170337.pdf

Further meetings are to follow and should take place more or less every month at various locations around the Central Coast and will concern topics of a timely nature in strawberries.  So for example there will be a meeting on lygus bugs in April or May, fertility management in February, irrigation in March, pathogens in March and spider mites in June.  If we get a new bug coming our way, why we'll have a meeting about that too.  We have the good fortune to count with a first class group of academics and agricultural professionals from UC Cooperative Extension, the University of California and other industry associated organizations and thus have the privilege to extend some of the best information around in a language everybody can understand.

Depending on who is presenting, some of the meetings and presentations will be held in Spanish with translation to English, while others will be in English with translation to Spanish.  The emphasis is that these meetings are open and accessible to all of you involved in the industry of producing strawberries on the Central Coast.

So just be aware that over the next ten months this series of meetings will be taking place and to stay apprised of when they are coming about. 

I am really looking forward to putting on these meetings with all of you!

Mark