Browsing by Author "Poutanen, Jari"

Gray mold (Botrytis cinerea) is an important disease of strawberry. The pathogen is spread by spores to strawberry flowers, from where the disease spreads to the developing berries. It progresses fast especially in high humidity and without any control. It can destroy even half of the crop. In conventional production, the strawberries have been sprayed by fungicides several times in beginning of summer. Only approved biological fungicides in Finland are Prestop- ja Prestop mix (Verdera Oy), and those can be spread to strawberries by honey bees (Apis mellifera), witch visits in the flowers of strawberry. For this task, the special additional equipment must been installed to hives. Inquiry survey have been made for the strawberry growers, witch have used the entomovectoring control method. The survey clarifies the problems of beginning to use the method, laboured and profitability, problems relating to bees and the needs of develop. Result of the survey is, that the growers have quite committed to use entomovectoring control method, even that many growers told that it was laboured and the efficency could not been seen clearly. The main reasons for the use of method were control of gray mold, reduce of chemical control and safety for user and environment. In addition to method gave image benefit to grower and improved pollination of strawberry. Getting started and use of method were more often trouble-free. The main development points were to extent the time between the addition of pesticide to the spreader equipment and to develop the method for commercial bumble-bee (Bombus terrestris) hives.