The latest in berry growing technology and modern methods of pest management was discussed at an industry information day in Launceston this week, drawing on knowledge from national and international experts.
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Tasmania's berry industry has expanded rapidly in the past decade, growing more than 10-fold in gross value and enjoying the benefits of separation from the mainland and its pests, such as the Queensland fruit fly.
Agronomist at Victorian berry industry product supplier E. E. Muir & Sons, Michael Gangi, said the industry had been well-protected in recent years.
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"We are continuing to find methods of containing the Queensland fruit fly," he said.
"There have been no detections in 2020 so we've been pretty lucky up to this point. We don't think we'll see any detections for the remainder of the season."
He spoke about the latest in ventilation for large-scale berry operations, including methods that allow undercover growing operations to be up to 10 degrees cooler than outside.
Mr Gangi said Australian berry producers were increasingly keen to experiment with larger plugs for greater yields, offering more alternatives to the bare root method.
Varying plugs are widely used in Europe, as explained by Klaas Plas, of Berry Konsult based in the Netherlands.
He also spoke about research into pest management - an ongoing focus particularly for the strawberry industry, which has been grappling with the image of being overly-reliant on pesticides.
Studies have shown that strawberries are more likely to be contaminated with pesticides than any other fresh fruit, but Mr Plas said this did not necessarily need to be the case.
"I don't mind aphids there. I think in two weeks, they're not really there anymore," he said.
"It's more that you see aphids on your plant and you don't like it. The economic damage, though, is not so big from aphids."
Mr Plas said, in many cases, spraying berries with pesticides also kills the insects that act as predators for harmful pests, and may be a counter-productive measure.
"If you spray it, you kill the predator too. Then you have a problem, but if you don't do anything, the problem will solve itself," he said.
The information day was organised by Fruit Growers Tasmania.