Tag Archives: Rutgers

Rutgers extension

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Last week, one of Pine Island’s closest collaborators, Dr. Peter Oudemans, was promoted by Rutgers University to the rank of full Professor. His research with the Philip E. Marucci Center for Blueberry and Cranberry Research has been tremendously beneficial to the cranberry industry.

A great deal of his work with Pine Island and other growers includes the persistent problem of fairy ring. “We’re starting to get more answers,” Peter says, “and we also have better technology to get the answers. We also have Tim’s, and now Josh’s, research on the floral component and how to better control disease.”

PIICM manager Cristina Tassone has high praise for all of the researchers who work with the industry. “Working with the scientists and researchers at the Rutgers Research Extension is invaluable to us,” she says. “We have a unique opportunity, due to our proximity and our size, to work closely with them and provide areas on our farm for larger experiments. Being able to collaborate in this way, and share resources, helps not only us, but the cranberry industry as well. Peter’s experiment with Fairy Ring treatment is making progress, and he has started using a drone to monitor the experiment area. He also has a graduate student working on one of our bogs gathering data on footprinting (which is another issue for all growers, specifically in the Stevens variety). Cesar Rodriguez-Saona and Dan Schiffhauer are also helpful with any and all pest questions we may have, and Dan comes to the farm every Friday to walk the bogs with us to help with fertilizer decisions and to check up on the findings of our scouting program.”

The relationship goes both ways: “I’ve learned a large number of life lessons from growers,” says Peter. “Working with the people in this area has been phenomenal.”

Cranberry research

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On Wednesday, our Integrated Crop Management (ICM) team had a chance to sit down with Dr. Peter Oudemans and graduate student Tim Waller of Rutgers University to hear about Tim’s research on the window for fruit rot control. Tim, who earned his undergrad degree in Biological Sciences from Rutgers, got his first research experience with blueberries, studying black shadow disease, and began working with cranberries in his graduate program. He previously presented his work at the ACGA Winter Meeting in January where it was well-received.

Peter introduced the presentation with a little bit of background on the study, which was designed to answer some longer term questions such as “Why there is a window for fruit rot pathogens?” and “Why the bloom period is so important and what don’t we know about it?” Tim’s research is also concerned with the factors in the plant that contribute to this window of opportunity, and how growers can use what they find out. (It’s also a cooperative effort: an endowment for this study was provided by the William S. Haines, Sr. Cranberry Research Fund, which was created in his memory to provide research funding that can help growers in the long term.)

Tim split his talk into segments, starting with a short but thorough biology lesson, moving into the experiment structure, and then went on to discuss possible targets for application. He explained the “ideal” environment for fungi, the anatomy of the cranberry blossom, and how fungi use the blossom to cause infection as well as multiplying to cause additional infections. The cup-like structure of the cranberry blossom is perfect for holding water and is therefore a perfect environment for fungal development. The crucial part for us as growers comes down to the timing of application: the time frame on the infection process might be as little as twelve hours during bloom, but there is a latency period, meaning we won’t see rot until September. That twelve hour window becomes our goal: how do growers improve their timing and help eliminate rot?

Tim’s research is just the beginning, of course, but it’s a fantastic opportunity for growers to work with researchers to obtain hard data. PIICM manager Cristina Tassone says, “What Tim is doing is what we’ve been doing ourselves for years; our fungicide program is there and it works, but so much of farming is based on observing what works and continuing to do it. Now we can build a foundation to figure out why. If we can change the climate in the bog…know the variables, the perfect conditions, what needs to happen to keep rot from occurring…we can be proactive instead of reactive and in the process become better growers.”

Humidity

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“It’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.”

It may be a cliché, but it’s sadly all too true: thanks to New Jersey’s high humidity, the most serious disease problem faced by area cranberry growers is fruit rot. Though the fungi known to cause fruit rot appear wherever cranberries are grown, the degree of infection is greatly affected by weather conditions. Most field rot symptoms occur with high summer temperatures and moisture, per Dr. Peter Oudemans of the Rutgers Cooperative Extension.

We talked last week about how the weather has not been greatly beneficial for pollination; the same also applies to rot conditions. June 2013 has been the wettest June in recorded history in New Jersey, with an average rainfall for the month at 9.2 inches. According to PIICM manager Cristina Tassone, Pine Island received an average rainfall of eight inches both on the home farm and Sim Place. “In New Jersey, you have to have a fruit rot fungicide program,” she says. “And with weather conditions like this, we have to make sure our timing of the applications is right.” Fortunately, the newly installed underdrain is working very well to keep our bogs drained and as dry as possible, but we still need to use a treatment program. Our target percentage for rot is less than 3%; for anything higher than that, we are penalized by Ocean Spray. High rot numbers during the harvest hurts our efficiency. It slows down our packing house team, which in turn slows down the Ocean Spray receiving station.

Cristina checking vines at Otter

Pine Island is constantly evaluating the fungicide program in order to make the best decisions from season to season. We don’t have hard numbers on rot percentage until after a bog is harvested, but every year at the end of harvest we always revisit and see if we need to adjust our program. We have two basic programs: standard and intensive. The standard is three to four applications. “The first two are the most important,” Cristina says. “We have to cover as many of the flowers as we can. Our team is constantly scouting until we get to about twenty percent scattered bloom, when the first application will go on, and then the next is done when we’re at full bloom. The first two are where you’re going to live or die.”

“Sad to say, this year we have ‘perfect’ rot conditions,” she says. “In a normal year, we can switch to the standard program from the more intensive program, but one year or one season can’t determine that. It’s all about timing; we do what we have to do when it’s time to do it. If it’s not done? You can’t turn that back.”