Project Number: 1931-21000-012-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Nov 28, 2003
End Date: Nov 27, 2008

Objective:
Develop benign and environmentally friendly crop management practices to mitigate environmental and biotic stresses and to increase productivity and quality of small fruit crops. Improve the understanding of mechanisms controlling flowering and carpel size in small fruit crops in order to enhance fruiting and fruit quality.

Approach:
Determine the efficacy of novel cultural and chemical treatments to mitigate low temperature damage, and effects of primocane and environmental manipulations to accelerate and intensify floral bud initiation and subsequent reproductive development. Evaluate kaolin-based hydrophobic particle film technology and its application methods for pest control. Improve the understanding of mechanisms controlling flower development in blackberry and growth processes involved in regulating the flower size and inflorescence development. Analyze the effects of plant material source and environmental conditions during propagation and generative stages of strawberry plant development to devise management strategies aimed at producing high quality, superior yielding strawberry transplants. A zero nutrient discharge system of growing strawberries in hydroponics will be developed taking advantage of the phenomenon of compensation nutrient uptake.