Production of Strawberries in Florida

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Production of Strawberries in Florida

• Monica Cooper

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Field Preparation

• Clear all debris
• Construct raised beds
• Fumigate
• 2 weeks later, set transplants (15-16 in.)
• Transplant selection?early season yield
• 3 varieties/field
• Sweet Charlie Camarosa

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Gulf Coast Research Education CenterDover, FL
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The Pathogens

• Botrytis cinerea
• Colletotrichum acutatum
• Colletotrichum gloeosporioides
• Colletotrichum fragariae
• Xanthomonas fragariae
• Sphaerotheca macularis

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Gray mold

• Botrytis cinerea
• Small, firm, light brown spots
• Fruit eventually covered with gray mass of
  mycelium
• Invades blossoms, then infects maturing fruit
• Postharvest

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Management

• Leaf sanitation plant spacing
• Cultivars with smaller calyxes
• Partially resistant cultivars
• Biological controls
• Treat transplants
• Broad spectrum fungicide on weekly basis
• Iprodione during peak bloom periods

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• Postharvest
• Avoid overripe or damaged fruit
• Avoid injury
• Cool fruit
• Maintain in CO2 rich atmosphere

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Anthracnose fruit rot

• Colletotrichum acutatum
• Round, firm, sunken lesions on fruit
• Pink, orange, salmon-colored spore masses
• Favored by warm temperatures rainfall
• May cause serious losses in nursery

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Management practices

• Avoidance
• Resistance
• Use minimal amounts of Nitrogen
• Remove infected fruit from field
• Captan or Thiram (protectant)
• Quadris (azoxystrobin)

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Anthracnose crown rot

• Colletotrichum gloeosporioides
• Colletotrichum fragariae
• Wilting death
• Temperature dependent
• Warm weather frequent rainfall
• Reddish brown rot or streaking in the tissue of
  the crown

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Management

• Preventative
• End of season removal of inoculum
• Resistant cultivars
• Benlate (benomyl)
• Topsin M (thiophanate-methyl)

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Angular leaf spot

• Xanthomonas fragariae
• Angular, water soaked leaf spots
• Translucent lesions
• Very resistant to desiccation
• May become systemic

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Angular leaf spot

• Prevention
• No resistant commercial cultivars
• Copper containing bactericides

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Sphaerotheca macularis

• Powdery mildew
• White, web-like growth
• Undersides of leaves
• Cool
• High humidity
• Severe in glasshouses tunnels

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Management

• Clean stock
• Destroy leaves on which pathogen overseasons
• Protectant fungicide
• Resistant varieties (Sweet Charlie)

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The Arthropod Pests

• Twospotted spider mite
• Armyworms
• Thrips
• Field cricket
• Sap beetle

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Tetranychus urticae

• 88 of growers
• Warm, spring weather
• Reduce yield
• Blooms and developing fruit

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Spider mite

• Clean transplants
• Beneficial mites (30 of growers)
• Miticides
• undersides of leaves

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Fall Southern Armyworms

• Spodoptera fruqiperda
• Spodoptera eridania
• Larvae feed on fruit leaves
• Prefer young, developing leaves
• Nocturnal

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Management practices

• Monitoring?Sept. through Dec.
• Bacillus thuringiensis
• Methomyl

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Flower thrips

• Frankliniella cephalica
• Wind-borne
• Rasp flowers
• Mistaken for powdery mildew, spray burn damage

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Field cricket

• Gryllus firmus G. rubens
• 2-5 months after beds covered
• Nymphs adults feed on crowns scrape seeds
  from green fruits

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• Scouting
• Insecticides

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Sap beetle

• Lobiopa insularis
• Minor concern
• Overripe, damaged berries
• Disseminate fruit rot pathogens
• Warm weather

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Management

• Maintain sound fruit
• Dont leave overripe fruit in field
• Harvest all areas of field
• Scout
• Insecticides, only in case of population explosion

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Beneficial Arthropods

• Predaceous mite
• Sixspotted thrips
• Lady beetle larva
• Minute pirate bug larva
• Hover fly

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Phytoseiulus persimilis

• Orange, shiny
• Faster than spider mites
• Specialized predator of webspinning spider mites
• Careful in choice of insecticides

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Sixspotted thrips

• Feeds on mites, other small arthropods
• 3 dark spots on each forewing

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Minute pirate bug larva

• Orius insidiosus
• Thrips, mites, mite eggs, aphids

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Hover fly

• Flower fly, syrphid fly
• Mistaken for fruit fly
• Distinguished by ability to hover fly backwards
  
• Adult?pollinators
• Larvae?predaceous on aphid

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Insecticides Miticides

• Methyl bromide
• Methomyl (Lannate)
• Armyworm
• 65-80 acreage
• 3-5.2 times/season
• Fenbutatin-oxide
• Vendex
• Mite
• 31-61 acreage
• 1.7-4.8 times/season

• Abamectin (Agri-Mek)
• Mite
• 68-83 of acreage
• 2.5-3.4 times/season
• Diazinon
• Armyworm
• 24-35 of acreage
• 2.5-3.4 times/season
• Naled (Dibrom)
• 15 acreage
• 2.2-3.1 times/season

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More chemicals

• Carbaryl (Sevin)
• 11 of acreage
• 2.6 times/season
• Bacillus thuringiensis
• When populations of worms low
• 57-65 of acreage
• 4.2-5.2 times/season

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Weeds

• Nutsedge
• Most troublesome
• Not managed by plastic mulch

• Several grasses broadleaf weeds
• Managed mainly by fumigation plastic mulch
• Weeds problem in
• Row middles
• Planting holes
• Perimeter of field

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Weed management

• Cultivation of row middles
• Hand weeding
• Plastic mulches
• Cover crops, sods, living mulches
• Fallowing
• Herbicides
• Applied to row middles
• Rotate herbicides due to changing weed population
  over 6-7 month season

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Herbicides

• Paraquat (Gramoxone)
• Postemergence
• Annual broadleaf grasses
• Top kill of perennials
• Non-selective, need shield to protect berries
• 82-98 of acreage, 1.7-1.9 applications/season
• Napropamide (Devrinol)
• Annual grasses broadleaf weeds
• Not effective on established weeds
• Not from bloom to harvest
• 25 of acreage, 1.23 applications/season

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Nematodes

• Sting
• Belonolaimus longicaudatus
• Root knot
• Meloidogyne spp.
• Foliar
• Aphelenchoides sp.

• Make plants more susceptible to
• Drought
• Salt damage
• Other pathogens
• Fusarium sp.
• Pythium sp.

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Sting nematode

• Ectoparasite
• Most damaging
• Nurseries
• Transplants
• Sandy soil
• 25-30oC

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• Symptoms
• Well defined borders
• Dead transplants
• Stunting, decline, dormancy
• Browning of leaf edges
• On roots
• Overall, coarse appearance
• Tips injured
• No new growth
• Lack of feeder roots

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Nematodes

• Sampling
• At end of growing season
• When soil damp, not soggy or dry
• 10-20 samples at depth of 6-10 inches
• Management practices
• Preplant or postharvest

• Clean stock
• Destroy crop at end of season
• Fallowing with frequent tillage
• Cover crop
• Crop rotation
• Chemical?most common

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Methyl bromide

• January 1, 2005
• Soil fumigant
• Controls
• Weeds
• Nematodes
• soil-borne pathogens insects
• Telone C-17 or C-35 with Devrinol
• Telone EC
• Mulches, cover crops

                            
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Tunnel system

• Decrease disease
• Increase early season yields
• Where water is limiting factor
• Sweet Charlie