Spray-on ‘raincoat’
Biolfilmsealant developed at Oregon State University helps cherry, blueberry crops resist cracking. By Judie Steeves
T
here’s a new product available now in Canada to help prevent rain damage to blueberries and cherries by covering the fruit with a rain-resistant, food-grade, elastic biofilm just prior to maturity. It’s the brainchild of Clive Kaiser, a tree fruits specialist and associate professor at Oregon State University, working with Mark Christensen of the OSU Faculty of Pharmacy.
Patented under the name SureSeal by the university, the material reduces cracking in sweet cherries, which is caused when heavy rains leave water on the cherry, particularly in the stem bowl, which is absorbed into the fruit, causing it to swell and crack the skin. Such cracking renders cherries unfit for harvest and it can be an economic disaster for growers.
Cracking can also be caused by saturated soils, notes Kaiser. Internal cracking can result if there’s particularly heavy rainstorms dumping as much as 1 1/2 inches of rain on the ground in 24 hours.
“Normally you don’t see that much, but if growers don’t monitor their irrigation with relation to weather and soil moisture content, it can also cause cracking problems,” he warns. Growers applying one per cent SureSeal as a spray at straw colour and again 10 days later shouldn’t need to bring in helicopters or use sprayers to blow the water off fruit as it nears maturity, he said.
Trials in Norway resulted in growers saying they were very happy with it. They found a 50 per cent reduction in fruit cracking, from 24.6 per cent to 9.8 per cent, but they noted that soil moisture had to be monitored as well, and they felt plastic ground covers were also needed.
16 British Columbia FRUIT GROWER • Summer 2015
Clive Kaiser, tree fruits specialist at Oregon State University, whose SureSeal product is available in Canada as Parka+ for cherries and BluGuard for blueberries.
The hydrophobic film is edible, but repels water and it can be applied as a mixture with Gibberellic Acid, says Kaiser. In fact, the combination can result in the largest fruit, but it’s important to monitor weather and soil moisture as well, he says.
GA is a plant growth regulator used to maintain fruit quality and delay ripening for about a week while the fruit continues to grow.
SureSeal is a co-polymer of stearic acid, cellulose and calcium which is marketed in Canada by Cultiva as BluGuard for blueberries and Parka+
for sweet cherries. No federal registration is needed.
Although it is entirely edible and organic, it is not certified organic due to the surfactant in it, so organic growers will not be permitted to use it. Kaiser said he continues to research use of a different surfactant which would be acceptable under organic certification requirements.
He reports that Cultiva surpassed its sales targets for the new product in the first year, and sales doubled in the next year, so he’s very happy with the results and the reaction of farmers.
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