IPM Strategies for Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD), including both sweet and tart cherries.
Disease Management Strategies and Solutions: In order of priority, American brown rot, cherry leaf spot, bacterial canker, and powdery mildew. Continue evaluating and mitigating pathogen resistance to fungicides, including SDHI, SI, and QOI
Arthropod Management: Advance chemical and IPM-based management strategies and tactics, along with biological and genetic studies, targeting plum curculio, mites, obliquebanded leafroller (OBLR), San Jose scale, trunk borers, and nematodes.
Climate Resilience: Enhance orchard adaptability to drought stress, winter injury, and variable bloom phenology associated with climate change.
Improving Fruit Firmness: Investigate the roles of nutrient management, rootstock selection, plant growth regulators (PGRs), and photosynthetic efficiency in reducing soft fruit incidence.
Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) Compliance: Address export market challenges related to pesticide residue tolerances.
Cherry Breeding Program: Support breeding for resistance to cherry leaf spot and Armillaria root rot, emphasizing molecular screening and field validation.
Orchard Replant and Soil Health Issues: Evaluate soil-borne pathogens, nematode suppression, and strategies to restore soil health following orchard removal.
Abandoned Orchards: Assess the impact of unmanaged orchards on pest and disease pressure at the regional scale.
Current and Future Marketing Priorities
New Product Development: Expand research on innovative uses of sweet and tart cherries, including value-added and processed forms.
Pit Reduction Technologies: Explore mechanical and processing innovations to minimize or eliminate pits in finished cherry products.
Global Production Trends: Analyze worldwide production trends by variety to inform marketing and competitiveness strategies for tart cherries.
Varietal and Production Optimization: Identify and enhance marketable fruit traits, including firmness, nutraceutical profile, size, sugar–acid ratio, color, and suitability for fresh markets. Include evaluation of high-density planting systems.
Sustainability and IPM Integration: Continue developing production methods that align with sustainability standards and integrated pest management principles.
Market Research: Conduct consumer and trade research to inform strategic positioning, brand awareness, and product innovation.
Pet Food Market Development: Support studies demonstrating the nutritional and health benefits of cherries in pet food formulations.
Other Current Production Issues
Weather Monitoring Systems: Modernize and expand the computerized weather station network to enhance precision agriculture and risk forecasting.
Wildlife Management: Develop and assess strategies to mitigate wildlife damage in cherry orchards.
Fruit Quality and Growth Regulators: Investigate the use of growth regulators to optimize fruit size, brix, and uniformity.
Irrigation Efficiency: Advance precision irrigation technologies to improve water-use efficiency and support sustainable production.
Frost Protection and Delayed Bloom: Evaluate techniques to mitigate frost and control bloom timing to reduce spring freeze damage.
De-fruiting Young Trees: Study chemical and mechanical de-fruiting methods to optimize early tree development and canopy structure.
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