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Popham meets with berry growers Discussion creates room for continued dialogue


by RONDA PAYNE


ABBOTSFORD – Working together has often led to positive rewards for BC’s berry organizations and this approach worked again when it came to getting the ear of BC agriculture minister Lana Popham.


The minister met with the


four major berry organizations on April 4 to discuss issues of common concern. James Bergen, chair of the


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Raspberry Industry Development Council (RIDC) and co-owner of Bergen Farms in Abbotsford, was at the meeting. He said there was “a good turnout” of 20 to 30 people. Mike Wallis, executive


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director of the BC Cranberry Growers Association, attended, as well as growers drawn from a list assembled by Sukh Kahlon, president of the BC Raspberry Growers Association, Lisa Craig, manager of the BC Strawberry Growers Association and RIDC, and BC Blueberry Council exective director Anju Gill. Bergen said the meeting was an opportunity for Popham to hear about the concerns of berry growers and their interest in creating an environment to compete with berry growers in international markets. Bergen was pleased that


Popham appeared both interested in and sympathetic to what growers had to say. “A lot of what we were


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research and development centre located in Kentville, Nova Scotia, BC growers are concerned that their needs aren’t being met. “We’re just conveying how important all this is,” says


Bergen. Growers also raised


concerns about the phasing out of the Medical Services Plan and the new health tax businesses will have to pay, and the delays dogging the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program (SAWP) this year. Bergen felt the meeting was positive in moving communication forward with the ministry and sensed that the minister was receptive to


RASPBERRY


marker work,” he said. “We can start figuring out where in the gene we can find root rot. We’ve got some good ideas on how we can make progress on yield over time when we get to that stage.” Researcher Eric Gerbrandt


spoke about the combined work of the raspberry, blueberry and strawberry sectors under the Lower Mainland Horticultural Improvement Association umbrella to make use of applied research and plant breeding to ensure long-term competitiveness. An application for research funding has been submitted to the federal government’s AgriScience program. Gerbrandt’s raspberry trials


are showing positive gains. Cascade Premier from Washington, he notes, looks good and is expected to have good root rot tolerance. “Our on-farm grower trials continue to demonstrate the BC berry breeding program’s genetic gains in raspberry productivity, fruit quality, suitability for machine- harvest and potential tolerance to soil-borne pest and disease pressures with the objective of finding superior combinations of these traits so that new BC cultivars can be released,” he says. “We continue to develop


what berry growers had to say.


“I definitely felt she was


very open in her communication and understanding of what we were asking and what concerns we were putting forward,” he says. “It was great to actually have a voice direct to the minister.” Bergen anticipates similar meetings will occur more regularly in future.


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tools for growers, evaluating the use of drip-line fumigation, new post-plant nematocides an drench- applied crop inputs that build soil health as well as modifying fertility rates to fine-tune profitability,” he added.


Minor use update James Bergen doesn’t


expect raspberries to be a priority for minor use registrations due to previous successes, but the sector will continue meeting with the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) to maintain good relations and collaborate with other berry groups as opportunities arise. He said the organic


product Oxidate 2.0 for late rust may have new uses, especially against spotted- wing drosophila (SWD). “Oxidate has shown


efficacy against botrytis and against SWD, but we’re not sure how,” he notes, given that the product is a fungicide not a pesticide. Diplomat is now registered and is what Bergen believes to be the best non-chemical mummy berry control. Capture has a three-year critical need use for SWD (until 2021) and the pre- emergence from Bayer – Alion – is now registered on cane berries.


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