Strawberries and Caneberries

The matter of cold conditioning in strawberry is one of great importance to growers, farm managers and pest control advisors, and one for which patterns of management are established but nevertheless should be understood more to adapt to the changes in varieties and production patterns.In turn, over the last…

Phytophthora root rot is a common soilborne disease of raspberry. At least nine Phytophthora species have been reported as root pathogens of raspberry.  P. fragariae var. rubi, which is now known as P. rubi, is the species that many industry professionals thought was the most common. In mid-May 2026, a…

The Problem: I first addressed this issue and evaluated a yellowing of the leaves at the tips of fruiting laterals in an organic raspberry field in 2015, and have now once again been called on to evaluate the same thing in that is widespread in two new raspberry varieties.  With the generosity of…

As those of you who read this space at least sometimes know there are a lot of reasons that plant leaves turn yellow and that this can be beyond just the most obvious like nutrient deficiency or sickness, and sometimes includes things that we don't think about at the beginning.In this vein, consider the…

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…