Winter 2011 Small Fruit News Now Online

Sentinel blackberry plants after one month in the field at Killdeer Farms, Kings Mountain, NC. These plants are being used to determine the timing of virus infection in blackberries. Photo: HJB

The Winter 2011 issue of the Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium's Small Fruit News is now online. Of particular interest are an article on developing a marketing and research program from blackberries and raspberries, a project being organized by the North American Raspberry & Blackberry Association, and an article by Ioannis Tzanetakis, University of Arkansas, and colleagues detailing new virus findings in blackberries. The role of my lab in this virus project is to help determine potential vectors by tracking insect movement in relation to disease transmission. Our first set of traps and sentinel plants were placed in April 2010, and we completed our first field season in October.

Pan trap placed near sentential blackberry plants to capture flying aphids and other insects. These and other traps are being used to relate insect movement to virus infection timing in blackberries. Photo: HJB

Kevin Littlejohn, a research technician in my lab, has been busily processing insect traps all winter and will be identifying our findings to species as well as identifying viruses in sentinel plants. This project has been funding by the USDA Specialty Crops Research Initiative (SCRI) and will continue for at least 3 more field seasons.

More information
Small Fruit News, Vol 11. Issue 1.

Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium Newsletter

The latest edition of the Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium Newsletter has been posted. In this quarter's issue is a summary of 2010 SRSFC funded projects, strawberry & muscadine updates, and a recap of the Small Fruits Field Day adapted from my post.

Our lab was fortunate to have 2 projects funded by the SRSFC this year. Our blueberry pollination work is supported by a research grant and the spotted wing drosophila monitoring network is supported by extension funds. We greatly appreciate SRSFC's support of these projects!

SRSFC Newslettter. v. 10(3).

New Small Fruit News now online

The latest edition of the Small Fruit News, a newsletter published by the Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium is available now. This quarter's edition has an update on southeastern strawberries following our cold winter, post harvest advice for blackberries and raspberries, blackberry marketing and price trends, and herbicide updates.

Spotted Wing Drosophila monitoring to begin in April!

Female SWD. Image via www.ipm.ucdavis.edu.

The Southern Region Small Fruit Consortium has recently funded monitoring efforts for the spotted wing drosophila (D. suzukii) in the southeast. Our work will rely upon a volunteer network of agricultural professionals, including county cooperative extension agents, master gardeners, and certified crop consultants. Monitoring efforts will be on a volunteer basis, but training, support, and materials will be provided. Training sessions will begin in March 2010, and monitoring efforts are targeted to begin in April. Monitoring locations will include backyard gardens and non commerical plantings of potential host plants (ie. peaches, strawberries, grapes, blueberries, and caneberries). We will avoid be monitoring commercial small fruit farms in the first stage of this project, because of potential regulatory implications. If and when SWD are detected and confirmed in a region, we may include commerical grower sites if there is sufficient interest.

This project will initially focus on North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina, but training and methods will be available to interested parties from other states upon request. If you are interested in participating in monitoring efforts, contact Hannah Burrack.

Monitoring information will be collected via Google Documents and shared via this website and others.

UPDATE: We will now include commercial farms as possible monitoring sites.