11 Mar 2025
Cherries and quality, also in relation to the increasingly challenging climatic conditions for cherry growing: these topics were developed among others during the latest 'Stone Fruit Day' organised by Washington State University (WSU).
12 Feb 2025
Visual scouting cannot detect early infections and while highly accurate, it is costly. Washington State University (WSU), in collaboration with Ruff Country K9 LLC, is exploring a groundbreaking solution: using trained detection dogs to identify LCD-infected trees.
18 Apr 2024
A Washington State University research project aims to map air temperatures on frosty nights with a combination of data from AgWeatherNet's Tier 1 stations, which stand 30 feet high and record temperatures between 1.5 and 9 metres.
02 Apr 2024
The pathogen infects many plant species and survives on the leaf surface of many weeds found on orchard floors. It is known for being epiphytic, which means that pathogen colonization can occur on any plant tissue without provoking infection or symptoms.
26 Mar 2024
Matt Whiting, WSU physiologist, encouraged farmers to consider crop load management as a 15-month process: from flower bud initiation in spring to harvest in summer. Along the way, farmers have tools to intervene.
05 Mar 2024
Youfu Zhao recommends pruning in summer whenever possible and switching from sprinkler to drip irrigation to keep the orchard drier. For larger trees, it is possible to cut back the cankers, Zhao said, but this is fatal for young trees.
04 Mar 2024
"We are trying to understand how X-disease pathogen exploits the grasshopper to facilitate its life cycle," said William Walker, USDA geneticist. "This could provide us with forms of disruption, such as biopesticides, to halt the insect's life cycle."
29 Feb 2024
Knowing the critical temperature at which buds are killed is crucial for taking timely action against frost. Cold hardiness models use air temperature as a predictive factor for specific critical temperatures of the cultivar.
28 Feb 2024
Welcome Sauer, an orchard analyst working with the university, hopes to distribute the model in the form of a workbook, so as to adjust the basic numbers for orchard operating costs to an economic model for X-disease mitigation.
27 Feb 2024
Low temperatures will prolong ovule viability and stigma receptivity, yet also slow pollen germination and pollen tube growth. Research shows that apple and sweet cherry pollen germination can occur with temperatures as low as 41 F, depending on genotype.
