Weather allowed for insect, disease issues in berry crops last year

An early spring and moist summer was the perfect combination for insect and disease issues to thrive in Manitoba berry crops last growing season.

Spotted wing drosophila is an insect that infests strawberry, raspberry, and sour cherry crops, laying eggs in the ripening fruit and eating from the inside out. This makes the fruit unmarketable, and it appears sunken or soft.

To help control the insects, Mintenko says it's important to select earlier maturing varieties.

"We think, in a typical year (spotted wing) won't show up until late July or early August, which means most of the strawberry crops will be harvested already, and the raspberry crops," Mintenko says.

Mintenko says spotted wing will likely continue to be an issue in 2016, adding it's probably not going to go away, although he notes it's not a pest that over-winters.

"A recent study published this past winter from the University of Minnesota showed in their studies, it shouldn't be surviving in fields in Minnesota, so we're suspecting it's not over-wintering in Manitoba," Mintenko says. "So then they raised the point it's possibly being blown in, even into Minnesota, from the southern United States, and then that continues on into Manitoba."

Fireblight was also big disease issue for Manitoba last year, causing some destruction in apple and berry crops. Mintenko says this disease does over-winter, and says growers need to prune affected plants about five inches below the infected areas, disinfecting clippers between cuts.