Strawberry research at UF just got a whole lot sweeter.
The USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded a four-year, $2.9 million grant to the strawberry research team at the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, located at the UF Balm campus in Wimauma. The grant was announced Monday.
The grant will help the multi-state research team, led by UF plant pathologist Natalia Peres, find better ways to fight fruit rot that plagues the strawberries in Florida fields and refrigerators every year.
Mark McLellan, dean for research with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, said Peres and her team have developed a new system to predict disease threats that will “extend the impact and nature of guidance for strawberry growers in Florida.”
With the exception of California, Florida produces more strawberries than any other state and is the only state that can grow them during the winter.
According to Peres, her system is Internet-based and uses a network of weather stations across the state.
If the conditions at any of the stations are favorable for disease, alerts are transmitted to growers via e-mail and text messages along with treatment information.
