It is a high value crop with a long establishment period incurring high capital expenditure. To assure high quality fruit production, fungicides and insecticides are anecessary part of preventing fruit damage and loss of yield. A raspberry plantation in Greece Raspberries can be grown on upland and moderately steep slopes which would be unsuitable for most arable crops. Good prices come from producing high quality harvested fruit, free from blemishes, rots and moulds.
Good yields come from best practice in crop production within the variables of climatic factors.
Ensuring continuity and quality of supply from these diverse areas requires a concerted effort to develop and utilise pest and disease monitoring techniques. Avoiding damage from pest infestation and disease attack is vital to the economics of Rubus fruit production. Growers must balance the need to produce high quality fruit against the increasing pressures from retailers and consumers to reduce chemical useand residues. Raspberry crops may require several applications of pesticides in the pre-fruiting stage in any one season from leaf burst to green fruit stage. This project will provide the fruit growing industry with methods to forecast and monitor arthropod pests and post-harvest rot fungi and offer the foundation for a new European Code of Best Practice in pest and disease control.