The range of challenges commercial growers face was evident in a field day held May 3 at the Central Crops Research Station in Clayton. Scientists and graduate students walked participants through test plots, outlining research on cultural management, breeding and insect, weed and disease management.<\/p>\n The event\u2019s program wrapped up with a demonstration of a harvesting aid nicknamed \u201cThe Glean Machine.\u201d Built by NC State engineers and students, the motorized cart is designed to cut the amount of produce that growers leave in their fields. It can carry four people low enough to the ground that they can quickly and more easily harvest the last of a crop.<\/p>\n Field day goers also had a chance to taste strawberries, including two new NC State-developed varieties named Rocco and Liz<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Hoffmann, an assistant professor and Extension small fruit specialist in NC State\u2019s Department of Horticultural Science<\/a>, estimates that the state has 500 to 700 strawberry producers, including small pick-your-own operations and large, integrated farms of 100 or more acres.<\/p>\n [pullquote align=”right” color=”red”]Strawberries are such a high-value crop that small anomalies in the weather make a huge difference for growers.[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n Since joining the faculty in 2017, Hoffmann has been testing alternatives such as steam treatments to reduce soil fumigation with the chemical methyl bromide, and he\u2019s also finetuning pre-plant fertilizer recommendations.<\/p>\n In addition, Hoffmann is developing longer-term projects to enhance the state\u2019s strawberry nursery industry and to increase scientists\u2019 understanding of how strawberry flowers respond to frosts and freezes.<\/p>\n The North Carolina Plant Science Initiative<\/a> prompted him to work with faculty members from multiple disciplines at NC State to develop computer-assisted environmental protocols for optimized strawberry plant production. The knowledge gained could be key, Hoffmann says, to finding alternatives to the labor- and pesticide-intensive methods used in today’s strawberry operations.<\/p>\n Right now, when it comes to protecting the strawberry flowers plants from frost and freeze, growers use row covers, overhead irrigation or both to protect the blooms. While effective, the methods have their drawbacks, says grower and NC State alumna Sue Leggett.<\/p>\n At their farm in Nash County, she and her husband, Brent, used row covers frequently during this season\u2019s abnormally cold spring. Still, they lost 15 to 20 percent of their first two weeks of harvest because of misshapen berries that occur when the flowers aren\u2019t adequately pollinated.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you have those row covers on, bees can\u2019t get under there to do their job and pollinate,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n [pullquote align=”left” color=”red”]Our growers depend on NC State for answers.[\/pullquote]<\/p>\n \u201cStrawberries are such a high-value crop that decisions and small anomalies in the weather make a huge difference,\u201d she adds. \u201cSo having somebody with the expertise in weather and the crop makes just a world of difference for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Kristy Phillips, the executive secretary of the North Carolina Strawberry Growers Association, agrees.<\/p>\n \u201cOur growers depend on NC State for answers,\u201d Phillips says, \u201cespecially when it comes to managing plant diseases, coping with the weather and breeding new varieties that grow well in North Carolina.\u201d<\/p>\n [button]<\/span>See how we\u2019re at work in your neighborhood<\/span><\/a>[\/button]<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Research and Extension programs at NC State make a difference for growers \u2013 and consumers \u2013 of fresh market strawberries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":170627,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1170,1171,1633,1181,1163],"tags":[1922,2075,1863,216,1868,332],"_ncst_magazine_issue":[],"coauthors":[1651],"displayCategory":null,"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170579"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170579"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190158,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170579\/revisions\/190158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170579"},{"taxonomy":"_ncst_magazine_issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/_ncst_magazine_issue?post=170579"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=170579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Man](\"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2019\/05\/Mark-hoffman-950x535.jpg\")
We grow local economies, opportunities, solutions and talent.<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cals.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/31\/2019\/05\/Jeremy-Slone-pollinator-research-1024x577.jpg\")
Mark Hoffmann discusses his strawberry research findings during a field day at the Central Crops Research Station in Clayton.[\/caption]\r\n\r\nThe event\u2019s program wrapped up with a demonstration of a harvesting aid nicknamed \u201cThe Glean Machine.\u201d Built by NC State engineers and students, the motorized cart is designed to cut the amount of produce that growers leave in their fields. It can carry four people low enough to the ground that they can quickly and more easily harvest the last of a crop.\r\n\r\nField day goers also had a chance to taste strawberries, including two new NC State-developed varieties named Rocco and Liz<\/a>.\r\n\r\nMark Hoffmann, an assistant professor and Extension small fruit specialist in NC State\u2019s Department of Horticultural Science<\/a>, estimates that the state has 500 to 700 strawberry producers, including small pick-your-own operations and large, integrated farms of 100 or more acres.\r\n\r\n[pullquote align=\"right\" color=\"red\"]Strawberries are such a high-value crop that small anomalies in the weather make a huge difference for growers.[\/pullquote]\r\n\r\nSince joining the faculty in 2017, Hoffmann has been testing alternatives such as steam treatments to reduce soil fumigation with the chemical methyl bromide, and he\u2019s also finetuning pre-plant fertilizer recommendations.\r\n\r\nIn addition, Hoffmann is developing longer-term projects to enhance the state\u2019s strawberry nursery industry and to increase scientists\u2019 understanding of how strawberry flowers respond to frosts and freezes.\r\n\r\nThe North Carolina Plant Science Initiative<\/a> prompted him to work with faculty members from multiple disciplines at NC State to develop computer-assisted environmental protocols for optimized strawberry plant production. The knowledge gained could be key, Hoffmann says, to finding alternatives to the labor- and pesticide-intensive methods used in today's strawberry operations.\r\n\r\nRight now, when it comes to protecting the strawberry flowers plants from frost and freeze, growers use row covers, overhead irrigation or both to protect the blooms. While effective, the methods have their drawbacks, says grower and NC State alumna Sue Leggett.\r\n\r\nAt their farm in Nash County, she and her husband, Brent, used row covers frequently during this season\u2019s abnormally cold spring. Still, they lost 15 to 20 percent of their first two weeks of harvest because of misshapen berries that occur when the flowers aren\u2019t adequately pollinated.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhen you have those row covers on, bees can\u2019t get under there to do their job and pollinate,\u201d she says.\r\n\r\n[pullquote align=\"left\" color=\"red\"]Our growers depend on NC State for answers.[\/pullquote]\r\n\r\n\u201cStrawberries are such a high-value crop that decisions and small anomalies in the weather make a huge difference,\u201d she adds. \u201cSo having somebody with the expertise in weather and the crop makes just a world of difference for us.\u201d\r\n\r\nKristy Phillips, the executive secretary of the North Carolina Strawberry Growers Association, agrees.\r\n\r\n\u201cOur growers depend on NC State for answers,\u201d Phillips says, \u201cespecially when it comes to managing plant diseases, coping with the weather and breeding new varieties that grow well in North Carolina.\u201d\r\nWe grow local economies, opportunities, solutions and talent.<\/strong><\/h3>\r\n[button]<\/span>See how we\u2019re at work in your neighborhood<\/span><\/a>[\/button]<\/span>\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_170630\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"1024\"]
NC State student Jeremy Slone discusses his entomology research project. He focuses on how pesticide based management, landscape context and honeybee stocking density affect native pollinator health in strawberry agro-ecosystems across North Carolina.[\/caption]"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"