THE STRAWBERRY BLOSSOM WEEVIL: SIMULATION OF DAMAGE

Strawberry buds were removed at the beginning of the flowering period to simulate the effect of an attack by Anthonomus rubi on yield and berry size.
There were four levels of removal: 0, 10–15, 20–30 and 40–50% of the buds.
Four varieties were included: ‘Honeoye’ (1-yr old) in Sweden, ‘Honeoye’ (1-yr old) and ‘Zephyr’ (3-yr old) in Norway, and ‘Elsanta’ in Germany (1-yr old cold-stored plants and strong cold-stored plants in the planting year). In Finland the influence of removing buds of different order (primary, secondary and tertiary) was studied in cold-stored plants of ‘Polka’ in the planting year.
There was large variation among the trials.
Nevertheless, a loss of 10% or more of the buds early in the flowering, which means losing the biggest berries, will reduce the yield, because the fruit size did not compensate this loss and increased only a little or not at all.
Losses of buds at the end of the flowering period, which develop only to small fruits, will be of minor importance, because these will only be a small part of the whole yield.

Euro Berry Symposium – COST-Action 836 Final Workshop

R. Faby, B. Svensson, N. Trandem, T. Tuovinen

strawberry, Anthonomus rubi, damage threshold

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2004.649.43