Strawberry growers in South Carolina are approaching the spring season while monitoring the spread of Neopestalotiopsis, a fungal disease affecting production in the southeastern United States. The disease has caused crop losses in recent seasons.
Strawberries are grown in 26 of South Carolina's 46 counties. Spartanburg County has the largest planted area of the crop. Growers expect to determine the level of disease impact during the current harvest period.
Lindsey Thiessen, assistant professor and small fruits pathologist at Clemson University's Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, said the disease can cause major yield losses. "Where there are big infections of this, the losses can be anywhere from a 50 percent to 100 percent loss," Thiessen said. "So it can be very dramatic in a given field."
In Chester County, Cotton Hills Farms in Lowrys reported an 80 percent loss in the previous season.
According to the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension, the loss of a strawberry crop is estimated at US$123,553 per hectare, in addition to the costs associated with managing the disease.
Researchers have linked the disease to infected planting material supplied from greenhouse production in Canada. Many South Carolina growers previously sourced strawberry plants from Canadian suppliers.
"What we've learned is if we can start with a clean plant, that's the key," said Jeff Westbury of Westbury Farms in Summerville. "We went away from Canada and started ordering from California. I've heard some people order from Idaho now."
The disease may be difficult to detect in planting material before plants are established in the field, according to Thiessen. Infected fruit may develop sunken wounds and black specks.
Growers are now focusing on plant sourcing as a method to reduce the risk of infection.
"One thing we're working to get is host resistance," Thiessen said. "There's no specific cultivars out there that are just completely resistant to Neopest, but we do have some trials ongoing here at Clemson and with other universities abroad that are looking at different varieties to see if any have tolerance to Neopest."
Source: The Post and Courier
