Spring frost damage in blackberries

In spring, blackberry buds, flowers, and young fruit are vulnerable to freezing temperatures.  Spring shoots on which flower buds develop have been less studied to determine what temperatures various parts of the shoot are injured by freezing temperatures.  We used differential thermal analysis and InfraRed thermography to capture freezing events and ice propagation. These technologies and studying freeze events in a radiation frost chambers have provided new insights into the process of ice nucleation and propagation in blackberry plants and simulation of natural frost events.  With this information, we hope to develop more efficient frost protection practices that can be used by blackberry growers.

Blueberry Harvesting Technology

The blueberry industry in the past three decades has grown at a phenomenal rate.  However, labor shortage for hand harvesting, increasingly high labor costs, and low harvest efficiencies are becoming bottlenecks for sustainable development of the fresh market blueberry production.  We are evaluating semi-mechanical harvesting systems of consisting of a harvesting platform with soft fruit catching surfaces, detaching fruit with portable and hand-held power shakers.  New sensor technologies to measure impact that cause fruit bruising and to visualize bruise damage have contributed to advancing improved blueberry harvesting technology.