18 FEBRUARY 15, 2016 Good Fruit Grower www.goodfruit.com
A
s little cherry disease continues to gain a
foothold in Northwest cherry orchards,
growers are finding that one of the biggest
concerns is knowing whether trees that
show no symptoms of the disease might
still carry it and need to be pulled.
"It's hard to recommend how growers should proceed
in terms of how many trees to remove, because we do
have confusion about non-symptomatic trees that carry
the disease," Dr. Andrea Bixby-Brosi, a postdoctoral
research assistant at Washington State University's Tree
Fruit Research and Extension Center, told growers at the
Washington State Tree Fruit Association Annual Meeting
in December. "Year after year, growers think they have it
under control, and then the following year, there's more
infection."
Questions about
INFECTIONS
Diseases
Researchers studying
little cherry disease try
to predict percentage
of positive trees that
show no symptoms.
by Shannon Dininny
