Specialty Crop Grant Awarded

The USDA just announced its 2011 Specialty Crop awards. We were one of the lucky ones, our grant "Partner with North Carolina State University to develop high quality raspberry cultivars that can be grown in the southern United States and are suitable for both local sales and commercial shipping" was funded. To see what else was funded go to:

http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELPRDC5093992

Coming soon to your community

Have you seen the "Got to be NC Grown" panels on trucks around the state? Well now we have a truck that has a blackberry and raspberry theme! Thanks to the NC Tobacco Trust Fund Commission, NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and NC State University for promoting these fantastic crops.

Heat stress in raspberries, part 3

The final chapter in the raspberry heat stress story is about picking the right parents.  We have determined that some species of raspberry do better than others in the heat so we are using them in some of our crosses.

Above is a picture of 'Mandarin'.  This variety was released from NCSU in 1955. It is more resistant to heat than other varieties (note the other plots in the field behind it that are not doing as well). 'Mandarin' is 1/4 R. parvifolius, a species that is native to Asia. 

'Mandarin' is not available from nurseries, the fruit is small and soft and the yields are low, so it can not compete with newer varieties. However, we are using 'Mandarin' and some of its relatives in our program and are making progress in finding a heat tolerant variety with good fruit traits.