Posts Tagged: raspberry
Fresh Market Raspberry in California
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
New Newsletter for Subtropical Growers
TOPICS IN THIS ISSUE – P. Rolshausen, Editor
- Leveraging the Genomic Landscape of Avocado for Breeding Purposes (Vanessa Ashworth and Philippe Rolshausen)
- Fresh Market Raspberry in California (Natalie Solares and Alexander Putman)
- Weed Management in Citrus Orchards (Travis Bean)
http://ceventura.ucanr.edu/newsletters/Topics_in_Subtropics82444.pdf
and subscribe to future editions
The U.C. Cooperative Extension Farm Advisors have combined to publish this quarterly combined newsletter. It will emphasize citrus and avocado, but will also discuss the minor subtropicals.
http://ceventura.ucanr.edu/news/Topics_in_Subtropics/
weed 1
Farm Call: Yellow Leaves in Substrate Raspberries
Part of my work has come to include substrate production of caneberries. Some of these are easy since they are pest management issues which don't vary that much from field problems, but others, like the nutritional situation depicted below, are far more complex.
A couple of things going on in this field, which are raspberries being grown in substrate under macro-tunnels. First, the very young leaves have a light yellow cast (see photo one below) to them and second the older leaves are seeming to have some difficulty (see second picture below), again becoming a sterner sort of yellow. I don't worry as much about the older leaves as I do the newer ones, which after all represent the future of the plant.
As you know, I'm not making any call without doing some thorough sampling. In this case, we took multiple samples of the younger leaves demonstrating the lighter shade of yellow and the same for the older yellowed leaves. To set the baseline, adult normal leaves (those surrounding the yellow leaves in the first picture below) were also sampled in multiple.
An important comment. We are sampling leaves of 3 different ages, and we should be aware that this is going to distort some of the concentrations. For example N, P, and K as plant mobile will by default trend higher in younger leaves, and nutrients such as Ca and B are going to trend higher in the older.
And sure enough in perusing the analysis below, N,P and K are higher in our newest leaves and lowest in the older, with the adult leaves in between. Likewise, Ca and B are very much higher in the oldest leaves than the other two age leaves, and as a matter of fact in the newest leaves these two nutrients are lower than what one normally would see recommended.
Mineral | Adult normal leaf | New, yellow | Old, yellow |
N (%) | 3.1 | 3.6 | 2.3 |
P (%) | 0.21 | 0.32 | 0.20 |
K (%) | 1.6 | 2.3 | 2.1 |
Ca (%) | 0.9 | 0.6 | 1.4 |
Mg (%) | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.7 |
Na (%) | 0.02 | 0.02 | 0.03 |
Fe (ppm) | 503 | 336 | 1321 |
B (ppm) | 33 | 20 | 78 |
Zn (ppm) | 23 | 28 | 23 |
Cu (ppm) | 4.1 | 5.8 | 3.7 |
Mn (ppm) | 343 | 321 | 469 |
Moving on however to the levels of iron things get a bit more interesting. While it is highly accumulated in the oldest leaves, it is far less so in the youngest at 4x less, and 3x in the normal adult leaves. Calcium shows a similar pattern of concentration, but the visual symptoms are nothing like what we know calcium deficiency to look like. Iron deficiency, on the other hand, usually described as chlorosis of one type of another, as a matter of fact does. In addition, we know that nitrogen can accentuate iron deficiencies because of growth promotion.
The older leaves turning yellow? It seems to me they are just old leaves, might be some dieback being pushed by high tunnel heat but nothing that excites a lot of attention.
In other words, it looks like the plant is outgrowing its ability to pull up iron for the moment. Given that we've had (still in October of all things!) some pretty hot plant growth weather, once the weather cools down a lot of this should disappear.
My advice to the grower is watch this one, I'm not sure yet concrete action is merited yet, best to see if once the plant slows down in its growth and nitrogen accumulation these symptoms subside.
Note the contrast of these newer leaves to the midtier leaves around them. Not an plant mobile nutrient, like NPK, so what could be the issue?
On the other hand, many of the very oldest leaves were showing these symptoms, which look a lot like heat or salt damage.
Spiders, Spiders Everywhere
Here's one that I've never seen before. True spiders with webbing so heavy that it could interfere with the growing point of raspberry.
On approaching the field, once notices a lot of the very top of many raspberry plants in this field under tunnels with those leaves rolled up. Of course this sets off alarm bells that it could be LBAM, but closer inspection reveals a far heavier webbing than is customary for a leafroller. And... lots and lots of spiders.
What would the call be to do about this? Hard to say, readers if you have experience and/or suggestions what to do, write in and I'll post your answer.
Pics taken today of the situation posted below.
Problem seen from afar - growing point curled into a ball.
Copious amounts of webbing.
Excessive webbing unfurling from plant.
Webbing in association with spiders - one on the top of the leaf, a bigger one under.
Spider close up - anybody know the species?
Rust on Raspberry
Yellow rust on raspberry has been a common issue of concern for growers and PCA's this past week, very likely this has been spurred on by the wet weather of this past winter.
Recommendations for management available at the UC IPM guidelines
http://ucipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r71101111.html
The pictures below are of what some of this rust manifests itself as. Viewing the leaf from the top, one sees an array of darker spots over a lighter background of the chlorotic leaf (not diagnostic, nor do I make any pretensions that this is being caused by the rust disease). Turning the leaf over, one can see the masses of pustules growing at these very spots.
Yellow rust affected leaf; top view.
Yellow rust on raspberry leaf, bottom view.