January 2021 - 1

Florida growing new
'Fifth Berry' white
strawberry
How will artificial
intelligence fuel a
greenhouse boom?
7
16
25
Crops extend season at
Minnesota berry farm
January 2021 | Volume 55 |
Issue 1
Rethinking
dipped
transplants
California studies drip
applications for strawberries
Dave Peck, general manager of Manzanita Berry Farms in Santa Maria, California, conducted his own study in 2019 to determine why the grower standard was performing so
poorly. Photo: California Strawberry Commission
By Crystal Nay
Western Editor
Applying fungicides in strawberry via
drip irrigation may become the standard
in protecting the fruit from its many soil,
fruit and foliar diseases. A new study from
the University of California Agriculture
and Natural Resources (UC ANR)
conducted at the Shafter Research Station
in California has shown some promising
results for preventing disease and the
effects on strawberry health and yield.
In a field known to be infested with
fusarium wilt, macrophomina crown
rot, and botrytis fruit rot based on the
symptoms seen in the previous year's
crop, Surendra Dara, UC Cooperative
Extension advisor in entomology and
biologicals, compared untreated plants,
plants treated by dipping in fungicides
and plants that received fungicides via
drip application.
" Growers don't generally drip apply
these fungicides because fumigation
is the main way to control soilborne
pathogens, " Dara said.
If growers skip fumigation and wait
until they see disease symptoms before
applying fungicide, it might be too
See DRIP, page 5
Fight against tomato virus shows promise
By Stephen Kloosterman
Associate Editor
When tomato brown rugose fruit
virus, or ToBRFV, was first discovered in
2014 in Israel, little was known about the
disease itself, and technologies for fighting
the disorder were limited.
Today, even as the virus has spread
to countries such as Italy, Germany
and Mexico, firms in the industry are
reporting successes developing new tests
for the virus, as well as headway into
breeding programs to combat the effect
of the virus.
A new approach
New, cheaper tests could speed up
phytosanitary " passports " for tomato
imports and exports, according to a
Dutch firm.
Prime Diagnostics, part of
Wageningen Plant Research in the
Netherlands, in November announced
its biochemists and virologists had
developed a new commercial test
for the virus. Wageningen Plant
Research develops, produces and
markets reagents, both molecular
and serological, for detection of plant
pathogens, said Prime Diagnostics
Manager Jose van Beckhoven.
" Up till now the presence of ToBRFV
could be tested with a TaqMan assay only, "
van Beckhoven said. The TaqMan assay,
a molecular test based on the detection
of DNA, has been acknowledged as the
standard test for ToBRFV by International
Safe Transit Association (ISTA) and
the European and Mediterranean Plant
Protection Organization (EPPO), he
said. The antiserum developed by Prime
Diagnostics is used in another kind of
test, ELISA.
" The differences between the two
tests lay in the sample preparation
Bayer is using two varieties of Roma
tomatoes in trials to test for the presence of
Tomato brown rugose fruit virus or ToBRFV.
(simpler for ELISA), the specificity (the
TaqMan will detect only ToBRFV), the
possibilities to test a high number of
samples in a high-throughput setting
(which is already in place for ELISA in
many labs) and the total costs per assay
(sample preparation plus detection is more
See VIRUS, page 19
January 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2021
