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It's field day season! Touring Penn State's high tunnels is one of many activities available at Ag Progress Days: August 15-17, 2017 Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center 2710 W Pine Grove Rd. Pennsylvania Furnace, PA 16865
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Tuesday, August 15, 2017; 12:30 - 4:30 pm 1791 Hillandale Road, Benton Harbor, Michigan Tours cover a wide variety of SWMREC's research projects will include high tunnel bramble production. https://www.tunnelberries.org/events--outreach.html  TunnelBerries personnel, Kathy Demchak and Matt Cooper, recently worked with students at Pennsylvania State University to construct a high tunnel on the Penn State Student Farm. Students will now have expanded hands-on experience with food production systems using protected culture! http://www.studentfarm.psu.edu/
 An organic potted raspberry system with various potting media is being tested at the Michigan State University Horticulture Teaching and Research Center. Media being evaluated include: leaf compost and bark, leaf compost with minerals, coconut coir, and vermicompost. Fruit yield and quality will be recorded in addition to determining the economic viability of this production system.
University of New Hampshire researchers working on the multi-state TunnelBerries project were picking day-neutral strawberries in Durham, NH last November. Last year, experiment station researchers harvested strawberries grown in low tunnels for 19 consecutive weeks from mid-July through the week of Thanksgiving. They also found that the low tunnels significantly increased the percentage of marketable fruit, from an average of about 70 percent to 83 percent. Read more...
The Vegetable and Fruit Field Day on July 12, 2017 in Rock Springs Pennsylvania is offered jointly by Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association and Penn State Extension and Penn State researchers. The Field Day is an opportunity to see and hear about research at Pennsylvania State University on a range of crops including low tunnel strawberry production as well as high tunnel strawberry and raspberry production. This event take place at Penn State's Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center.
TunnelBerries researcher, Marvin Pritts from Cornell University, gives recommendations for day neutral strawberry production under low tunnels in an article in American Agriculturist: http://www.americanagriculturist.com/crops/lowdown-stretching-strawberry-season  The lowdown on stretching strawberry season
by Kara Lynn Dunn Our raspberries in 3-gallon bag pots are growing well in the high tunnel in southwest Michigan. Last week we thinned the primocanes to no more than 6 per pot. This took about an hour for 60 pots. One of several labor-intensive management steps for this production system.
TunnelBerries has a new video on YouTube "Growing Containerized Raspberries Under High Tunnels". The economics of this system, management techniques and performance of fourteen raspberry cultivars are being evaluated at the southeast Michigan TunnelBerries research site.
At the TunnelBerries University of New Hampshire strawberry site, low tunnels have been installed. This week, graduate student Kaitlyn Orde, is in the process of removing the first wave of flower trusses to ensure the plants establish well.
At the TunnelBerries University of New Hampshire research site, Kaitlyn Orde's day neutral strawberry beds are planted and waiting for the low tunnels to be constructed. White and black plastic mulches will be tested in addition to UV-transparent and UV-blocking plastic tunnel covers. 
We released two commercially available (purchased from Koppert) natural enemies for whitefly control this week in the high tunnel raspberries: a predatory beetle, Delphastus catalinae, and a parasitoid wasp, Encarsia formosa. These are normally used in greenhouse production, but we are hoping that they can establish in the high tunnels too! The images below are: (L) Delphastus catalinae being introduced on raspberry leaves. The adult insects are shipped in a container with buckwheat hulls as a carrier. (R) Encarsia formosa are introduced by placing cards on raspberry canes. The card hold parasitized whitefly pupae from which the parasitic wasps will hatch.
TunnelBerries has a YouTube channel! Check out our videos on a range of topics from tunnel venting to trellising systems for brambles. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLujqQ1oVtGFL-vhDZsXOtg
High tunnel studies to be conducted at Penn State University for the 2017 growing season include several venting systems to control the tunnel environment. Venting can be automated based on temperature, and motorized components are powered by solar panels. Systems to be tested include: ridge vents (see the image below), roll-up sides, side baffles, roll-up roof and manual venting.  We are just finishing the pruning our primocane-fruiting raspberries at the Michigan research site.Some plants are cut right to the ground so that they fruit only in the fall. We used loppers to prune our raspberries by hand, making sure to cut at ground level to remove all the low buds. Low buds can produce fruit that is hard to find and can become infested with spotted winged drosophila larvae. We are keeping canes on other plants so that they fruit on the 2nd year floricanes in July in addition to the new primocanes in the fall. This "double cropping" system has been increasing total yields and expanding the fresh market season.  |
AuthorK. Hanson: Tunnel Berries Outreach Coodinator Archives
August 2017
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