The soft fruit industry in Northern Ireland (NI) is predominately made up of table top strawberry production under protection. However, both grower and market interest indicates room for expansion into additional crops such as cane fruit.
A KTT project on ‘Cane fruit in substrate’ was set up at Greenmount Campus in 2012 to showcase alternative growing methods for raspberries and blackberries. Soil grown cane fruit is susceptible to Phytophthora rubi, a soil borne fungus that can result in root and whole plant death. This project has looked at the technology involved with growing cane fruit in soil as well as in coir. Coir is a substrate developed from the outer husk of the coconut with potential to replace peat based substrate in the future. The coir substrate was used in both 12 litre containers and 2 m long troughs.
While Phytophthora rubi disease levels have been relatively low throughout the technology project, the yield results show what growers can expect from a containerised crop in coir. As the chart below shows yield weight per two linear meters of crop increased by approximately 50 per cent from 2012 to 2014. Coir filled troughs resulted in the strongest crop for raspberries over time.
During 2014 a quarter of soft fruit growers in NI showed an interest in cane fruit through adopting raspberries and/or blackberries in substrate as a crop or by continued involvement in technology demonstrations.
The ‘Cane fruit in substrate’ project, which is helping growers to diversify their crop range and consider alternative growing methods for crops, will continue in 2015 and further results will be made available.