Root-knot nematodes in kiwifruit
Which species actually matter, how to tell nematode damage from vine decline, and why soil temperature decides whether the nematicide works, with the Greek register and 31 sources.
Technical articles
Articles — page 5
The olive fruit fly
Bactrocera oleae does not take kilos, it takes the grade: between 10% and 15% infestation the acidity crosses 0.8 and the oil is downgraded from extra virgin. Biology, the Candidatus Erwinia dacicola symbiont, the degree-day model, fruit sampling and the 5% and 2% thresholds, bait sprays, kaolin, mass trapping, and the resistance now measured in Greek populations.
Cherry rootstocks, a detailed guide
Vigour, precocity, yield efficiency, soil adaptation and disease tolerance of the cherry rootstocks, from fourteen sources, and why the same rootstock is a different tree in another field.
Hydrological assessment before planting kiwifruit: four measurements anyone can make
Infiltration, drainage, the profile and the water table are four different questions with four different answers. The FAO ring test, the pit test, the observation pipe and how to read the colours of a soil pit - plus why an 8 L/h dripper ponds on clay.
Bacterial canker on apricot: what Romagna showed
Whole young apricot orchards in Romagna dried up within a few years. The cause was not a new pathogen but the change in the cultivar base: the early, vigorous cultivars planted from the late 1990s proved barely tolerant of Pseudomonas syringae, and the same plant material is going into Greek ground. The susceptibility list, copper rates with the 28-kilo ceiling, and what was tried as an alternative.
Fertiliser and organic matter calculator
Three calculations made every day by eye, and for that reason wrong. How many kilograms of fertiliser a nutrient target needs, what was really applied over the season, and how much manure it takes to lift the organic matter of the soil.
The orange spiny whitefly, Aleurocanthus spiniferus
An exotic quarantine insect spreading through Greece since 2016. Spraying does not control it and makes matters worse. How it arrived, how it is recognised, the generations, the hosts beyond citrus, the legal obligations that come with quarantine status, and the biological control developments of the past two years that have not yet reached the grower.
Peach fruit deformation disease: the Greek chronicle and the Chinese evidence
Five years of deformed peach fruit in Pella, the official analyses that ruled out a virus, and fifty years of Chinese research on the same phenomenon, published only in Chinese until now.
The right soil for growing kiwifruit
pH below 7.3, two metres free of an impermeable layer, five hours before the root runs out of oxygen in saturated soil. Why kiwifruit does better on loam than on sandy loam, what water quality rules out a block outright, and what it really costs to make a marginal block work.
Postharvest nutrition in stone fruit: the next crop is made in July
90% of the nitrogen in next spring’s spur leaves comes from reserves stored this autumn, and the pistil forms 7 to 9 weeks after harvest. Autumn urea, boron and zinc - what the trials show, when they work, and the Polish study where only boron did anything at all.
Scab of stone fruit, with the emphasis on apricot
A disease of rainy springs that neither kills the tree nor rots the fruit, it only downgrades it, and it does so shortly before harvest. Why it appears while the orchard is being sprayed, for four separate reasons, where the problem hides on shoots and leaves, the susceptibility window with its hidden incubation, and what is documented about the products and what is not.
Pruning Rojo Brillante persimmon: the Mataix method
Persimmon bears on shoots of the current season, and the whole method follows from that. Anatomy of the canopy, the target shape with its three production zones, the work year by year from planting to full production, old and neglected trees, and summer pruning in detail.