Flowers to Fruit 2014

Daniel Shires and his summer intern flagging individual flowers in the blackberry field. 

Yesterday, while on a farm visit with Daniel Shires, Area Agent, Agriculture, at the Cleveland County Cooperative Extension office we started a little project. We flagged 5 flowers from Natchez, Ouachita, Osage, Navaho and Von. He took pictures and will be going back to those same flowers as they develop into fruit to determine how long it takes for each of these blackberries to get from a flower at full bloom to a ripe berry ready to harvest. We will be posting pictures here, as he sends them.

How long do you think it will take for each berry to get ripe? 20, 30, 40, 50 or more days? Follow the progression here.

Flowers damaged by cold temperatures

Last week, in one of our research plots at the Piedmont Research Station in Salisbury, NC, I noticed that some of the flowers had tiny black centers. This is the result of cold injury to the flowers earlier this spring just as the buds were starting to develop (23F on 3/27/14). The flower in the oval on the left, with the green center will develop into a fruit, while the two flowers in the ovals on the right will not develop into fruit. There were not many damaged flowers and I expect that the total yield will not be impacted by the amount of damage in this picture.

Are you seeing orange?

This is the time of year when growers start to see orange on leaves and canes. I have posted information about these diseases on previous dates. Here are links to those posts:

Orange rust

Orange rust on underside of leaves. Photo taken at Piedmont Research Station, Salisbury, NC, May 2014.

http://teamrubus.blogspot.com/2013/04/another-orange-problemorange-rust.html

Orange cane blotch
http://teamrubus.blogspot.com/2013/04/orange-spots-on-canes-it-could-be.html

Potential new orange disease (In 2014, I have not had any reports so far, but wanted to post here just in case symptoms don't match one of the above)
http://teamrubus.blogspot.com/2012/03/new-rust-disease.html

Information on control of orange diseases:
http://www.smallfruits.org/SmallFruitsRegGuide/Guides/2014/2014BrambleSprayGuide10_24_2013.pdf