Strawberries and Caneberries

I am currently underway with a field trial investigating the relationship between spotted wing drosophila and leak rot in strawberry. The hypothesis is that the flies, which wound the fruit with their egg laying are also accelerating the spread of this wound and bruise loving fungus.

The question has been asked of me from time to time about the possible effect of water deposited on the plants by dew on spray efficacy. Spraying after all is using water as a carrier, and having even more water on the plant only adds to the amount being deposited on the field.

I got some nice quotes in today's LA Times article about technological advances in strawberries, including robot picking and tabletop production. Again, my thesis is that these enhancements are pretty spendy, and for the time being not feasible if one is looking for a positive return.

While we are all familiar with the fruit twisting and "monkey facing" caused by lygus bugs in strawberry fruit, we may have been kept unaware of other possible effects of these pests because of low treatment efficacy.

Had a colleague forward me the video below of Oishii Berry, the upstart indoor strawberry growing operation out East selling strawberries for up to $50 a basket (that's right, a basket, with six fruit in each one).