Ricardo Hernandez

The capacity of strawberry nurseries to develop clean plant material in a timely manner is crucial to the $ 2.6 billion US strawberry production industry. However, strawberry propagation in North America is a costly multi-year and multi-location operation, leading to a multitude of challenges: (a) Dependency on methyl bromide (MB) for soil disinfestation; (b) Plants as symptomless carriers of plant pathogens; (c) Significant inefficiencies, leading to higher costs for duplicative infrastructure, equipment, labor costs and transportation; There is a critical need for the strawberry nursery industry to reduce overall costs, minimize the spread of pathogens and find alternatives to MB. We propose to address these needs through a coordinated and systematic approach in close collaboration with national and international stakeholders. We have the long-term goal to accelerate the development of optimized, clean propagation techniques, using precise indoor propagation (PIP) practices and genetic tools. Our specific objectives are (1) Development of PIP protocols to optimize strawberry propagation; (2) Determine plant propagation capacity using genetic and morphological tools; (3) Determine socio-economic structure and supply chain of the US strawberry industry; (4) Develop fully functional PIP system and transfer technology into on-farm solutions. We propsoe to develop nursery specific services, products and on-farm technology, and we will extent our research through a multitude of activities, including yield prediction tools for strawberry farmers in the US. The main outcome of this project is the development of cost-effective strawberry propagation systems, leading to reduced use of MB and the mitigation of diseases and pathogen spread.

The NCSU-CEA-Coalition is an industry member-supported research program within NC State's Plant Science Initiative. Composed of research scientists, engineers and in close partnership with industry, the CEA Coalition aims to develop controlled environment agriculture (CEA) as an economically and environmentally sustainable option for agricultural practices by performing evidence-based, transformative research. NCSU-CEA-Coalition has unique expertise across colleges including engineering, horticulture, plant physiology, economics, marketing, etc.

The NCSU-CEA-Coalition is an industry member-supported research program within NC State's Plant Science Initiative. Composed of research scientists, engineers and in close partnership with industry, the CEA Coalition aims to develop controlled environment agriculture (CEA) as an economically and environmentally sustainable option for agricultural practices by performing evidence-based, transformative research. NCSU-CEA-Coalition has unique expertise across colleges including engineering, horticulture, plant physiology, economics, marketing, etc.

The NCSU-CEA-Coalition is an industry member-supported research program within NC State’s Plant Science Initiative. Composed of research scientists, engineers and in close partnership with industry, the CEA Coalition aims to develop controlled environment agriculture (CEA) as an economically and environmentally sustainable option for agricultural practices by performing evidence-based, transformative research. NCSU-CEA-Coalition has unique expertise across colleges including engineering, horticulture, plant physiology, economics, marketing, etc.

CEA - Consortium