Oct 14, 2024Garden State’s Philip E. Marucci Center aims to solve blueberry, cranberry issues
The Philip E. Marucci Center for Blueberry and Cranberry Research and Extension, a division of the Rutgers New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station, conducts and shares research vital to the cultivation of quality blueberries and cranberries while also developing new cultivars for the industry.
The Chatsworth, New Jersey, center’s fourfold mission involves enhancing farming efficiency through research, identifying and promoting adaptability to climate change, researching and advocating for farming practices compatible with the Pinelands ecosystem, and educating the public on farming practices and the necessity for innovation.
Peter Oudemans, center director and professor in blueberry and cranberry pathology, noted the center maintains an excellent relationship with growers, working to address their needs and collaborates closely with the industry to test new products against emerging pests.
“We are getting into a more global market with increased competition,” he said. “This makes our research improving on-farm efficiency even more critical.”
In addition to providing information on the cultural needs of cranberries and blueberries, the facility supports an extensive cranberry breeding program in cooperation with scientists from the USDA, Massachusetts and Wisconsin.
“We’re getting into situations now, especially with blueberries, where we have competition from all over the world and that is closing in on our harvest window, making on-farm efficiency critical,” Oudemans said.
A little history
The origins of the center date back more than 100 years. In 1918, a cranberry research station was established by noted scientist C.S. Beckwith in Whitesbog, New Jersey.
“The original cranberry substation was a building that was ordered from the Sears catalog,” Oudemans said. “It was mainly looking at the insect problems for cranberries.”
Eventually, blueberry research was added to the mix, and in 1962, the center moved to its current home in Chatsworth.
Over the years, the lab has welcomed such notable cranberry scientists as C.A. Doehlert, R.B. Wilcox, F.B. Chandler, R.S. Filmer, P.E. Marucci and W.E. Tomlinson, Jr.
Some of the center’s most significant achievements that the research has brought forth include developing cultivated highbush blueberry varieties; finding successful control methods for insect pests, such as the blueberry maggot and leafhoppers, that transmit blueberry stunt and cranberry false blossom disease, and demonstrating the vital role bees play in pollinating both blueberries and cranberries.
“Historically, one of the biggest things was developing a spray technology that could be used for cranberries and blueberries,” Oudemans said. “They started developing aerial applications after the second World War and that was critical technology back then.
Early on, center scientists worked on cranberry fruit rot, which was a devastating problem for growers — so much so, they didn’t think they could continue growing cranberries in New Jersey. The Stevens variety was developed, which helped mitigate the disease. However, its recent re-emergence in newer cranberry varieties, the center continues to conduct research to fight the disease.
Oudemans said cranberry fruit rot is a huge problem.
“We could lose up to 30% of the fruit with a missed fungicide spray, and we are working on better ways to control the disease. There are some promising genotypes being developed through breeding.”
The center has also explored the challenge of cranberry false blossom, a disease which results in yield loss by causing flowers to abort in the year that symptoms appear and by reducing or eliminating blooms in subsequent years.
“False blossom was imported from Wisconsin in the early 1900s, and spread like wildfire down here because we had the insect vector, the disease that could spread,” Oudemans said. “We went from 13,000 acres to less than 4,000 in a relatively short period of time because at the time, people didn’t know what to do.”
Again, the center worked with other experts, including those at Boyce Thompson Institute, the University of Wisconsin and the USDA, on false blossom and blunt-nosed leafhoppers to identify possible mechanisms of insect pest resistance in cranberries. Additionally, experts worked with the team at the center on tools for improving control methods against insect vectors and other cranberry pests.
“It is our number one problem in cranberry today,” Oudemans said. “The disease had been almost absent and a novelty in the early 2000s, but we started seeing a resurgence of the disease in new varieties. One of our major targets now is to develop methodologies to protect those plantings of the new high-yielding varieties.”
Vital programs
The center hosts seven research programs, including Rutgers, USDA- ARS and Ocean Spray. Cesar Rodriguez-Saona, Extension specialist in entomology, conducts research on the development and implementation of cost-effective, reduced-risk IPM practices for blueberries and cranberries.
“This goal is achieved through the integration of chemical, behavioral and biological methods in insect control and a better understanding on the ecology of pests and their natural enemies,” he said. “My extension program delivers IPM information to growers by conducting on-farm demonstration trials, presentations and extension publications.”
In blueberries, his department is developing biological, behavioral and chemical control strategies for the invasive spotted-wing drosophila. This includes the release of a biological control agent from its native range, Ganaspis kimorum wasp.
“We are also identifying repellents to manage this pest and testing new insecticides,” Rodriguez-Saona said. He is also studying the interactions among cranberries, a phytoplasma that causes false blossom disease, and the blunt- nosed leafhoppers, which are vectors of the disease, as well as non-vector insect herbivores. “These studies aim to develop new pest management strategies for these major insect pests in blueberries and cranberries,” Rodriguez-Saona said.
Tasked with vegetables, tree fruit and other specialty crops, Thierry Besancon, associate Extension specialist in weed science for Rutgers University, is doing more than working with blueberries and cranberries at the research center. Besancon’s work is also focused on evaluation of remote sensing and drone technology for early weed detection and integrated weed management in cranberry and blueberry production.
Gina Sideli leads a cranberry breeding program focused on developing varieties with improved resistance to fruit rot. She is developing and implementing phenomic tools for high-throughput phenotyping and utilizing genomic technologies to accelerate selection decisions in long-lived perennials. Oudemans noted another insect — the toad bug — has been attacking cranberry crops and is another area of study at the center, as is the Carolina redroot, a weed that grows in between cranberry vines and can cause significant losses in yield.
A newer problem uncovered is overheating of cranberries from solar radiation, which has become a larger issue in New Jersey and the Northeastern growing regions.
“We have a multi-pronged approach,” he said. “We work at all levels — in the lab, in the greenhouse, in the field and with growers, so we try to do useful research and translate it to practical recommendations for growers. We work to develop and implement economically sound and environmentally rational crop management methods.”
More information on the current research and resources is available on Philip E. Marucci Center for Blueberry and Cranberry Research and Extension’s website.
Article written by Keith Loria
A graduate of the University of Miami, Keith Loria is an award-winning journalist who has been writing for almost 20 years. View his recent writing at keithloria.contently.com.