{"id":15567,"date":"2024-07-19T00:03:12","date_gmt":"2024-07-18T22:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/berry-harvest-2024-a-difficult-season\/"},"modified":"2024-07-21T21:16:37","modified_gmt":"2024-07-21T19:16:37","slug":"berry-harvest-2024-a-difficult-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/berry-harvest-2024-a-difficult-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Berry harvest 2024, a difficult season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This year in Ticino, the weather remained very rainy throughout the spring. It didn’t get any better with the arrival of summer, marked by several extreme events: end of June floods and landslides in Val Mesolcina (freeway devastated, San Bernardino pass inaccessible), beginning of July same in Val Maggia (bridges blown down, upper half of valley inaccessible), mid-July storms and intense hail on the Magadino plain (destruction of market garden crops). This plain from Bellinzona to Lake Maggiore is the vegetable garden of Ticino, the Canton’s largest agricultural area.This very wet weather was damaging for us too and severely compromised the berry harvest.<\/p>\n\n

For redcurrants, blackberries (morus nigra) and saskatoons, the loss was almost total, as the storms caused everything to rot, except blackcurrants, which are more resistant.Many raspberries were affected by bothrytis (grey rot), then drosophila suzukii arrived at the end of June. This midge lays its eggs in ripe fruit still on the plant, and the larva then renders the fruit totally inedible.At the beginning of July, drosophila moved on to blueberries, fortunately with less virulence.Around July 10, it began to attack the Japanese raspberries, but without causing too much damage, as the bulk of the crop had already been harvested.On the other hand, our cherries, which are quite late (early to mid-June, Burlat variety) were excellent, without a single worm. Perhaps a positive side effect of this very strange weather.<\/p>\n\n

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One of the currant bushes least devastated by the rain (Versaillaise variety) on June 8. The others, red currants and Josta, are much worse.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The serviceberry bushes produced much less than usual.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The youngest and smallest trees held up best (Amelanchier alnifolia, Northline variety).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Classic raspberries have suffered this year. Fortunately, there are Japanese raspberries (Rubus phaenicolasius).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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They are much less affected by drosophila. Until they reach maturity, they are protected by a closed pod. Here, on July 4, the fruit is ripe and the pods are open.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Here on June 10, the pods are still closed and all the bunches are protected from rain and pests.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Plants produce a lot. They can be harvested up to the first week of July without any drosophila problems. Then it ends up on these fruits too.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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This is Drosophila suzukii: a tiny midge with orange eyes. It reproduces at an accelerated rate, often more than 10 eggs per day and 10 generations per year. Introduced to Europe in 2008, probably in imported fruit, it continues to spoil numerous harvests every summer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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So from June to early July we concentrated on Japanese raspberries and blueberries, which are the most resistant to this plague.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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In June we pick the smallest blueberry varieties. In July, it’s the turn of the larger-fruited varieties (Vaccinium corymbosum).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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They are also vulnerable to drosophila, but a little less so than raspberries. Attacked blueberries can be identified by touch: if the fruit is soft, the larva is inside. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Blackberries (Rubus fructicosa) are generally the fruit that suffers most from drosophila. They ripen quite late, when populations have multiplied, and in most cases 100% of fruit is affected.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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But, strangely enough, not this year. About half of the fruit is intact.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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We can finally make blackberry jam again.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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A difficult season so far. But with enough different varieties, there’s always something left.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And we’re counting on the future. The plums are ripening slowly. Pick well purple.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Kiwis are also doing well, even if the harvest is still a long way off (November-December).<\/figcaption><\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year in Ticino, the weather remained very rainy throughout the spring. It didn’t get any better with the arrival of summer, marked by several extreme events: end of June floods and landslides in Val Mesolcina (freeway devastated, San Bernardino pass inaccessible), beginning of July same in Val Maggia (bridges blown down, upper half of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3213,"featured_media":15507,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpagrumi.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}