AgNet DEMO

Category: Berries

  • UF Blueberry Breeder on Sentinel Variety: It Can Make You Money

    Photo submitted by Patricio Munoz/Shows Sentinel variety.

    The University of Florida’s (UF) newest blueberry variety possesses the quality all growers want in the Sunshine State.

    “It can make you money,” said Patricio Munoz, UF blueberry breeder.

    Munoz emphasized the attributes that make the Sentinel variety highly sought after from Florida farmers.

    “We can go around to yield, quality and everything but, yes, this one can make you money. I think we have consistent data since 2017 when the plant was already two years old and we started looking at it,” Munoz said.

    “It’s a consistent variety in terms of high yields and a consistent variety in terms of different locations. We have good supporting data for releasing this variety for consistent yields across locations and across years and in the best time of the season, which is early.”

    Years of Research

    Sentinel, released in October, was the culmination of 12 years of research by three different plant breeders, including Munoz. His relationship with Florida growers is vital to producing a variety that exceeds expectations. Communication is key to know what their needs are.

    “If you ask the growers what do they want, they say we want yield, high fruit quality and in the right time of the season, which is early for us in Florida,” Munoz said. “Their wish is long and very complex.”

     Munoz insists there is no perfect variety and doubts there will ever be.

    “In some cases you compromise fruit quality to produce the yield, and in other cases you compromise yield to produce quality. The more fruit you produce, usually the quality decreases,” Munoz said. “We use an index of selection where we combine all of these traits. We give them different weights and based on that, we try to compromise.”

    Sweet Flavor

    One characteristic of Sentinel that does not disappoint, though, is flavor.

    “Flavor is very subjective. One of us, if we tried the same blueberries, we might have different perceptions of how that blueberry tastes. It’s a difficult job for the breeder because he needs to breed for what he believes the people will like,” Munoz said. “We are trying to take subjectivity out of the equation here by doing tasting panels. We provide the fruit to a bunch of people at a tasting panel and they give us scores. What do think about it? In this case, this (Sentinel) cultivar was tasted by over 200 people and they put it in a very good place regarding the commercial cultivars that we have.

    “We need to breed for the growers, but we also need to breed for the consumers, because if the consumers are not happy with the fruit that they are consuming, they’re not going to go back. If they don’t go back to buy more fruit, the growers are not going to have a place to sell the fruit. We need to please the whole chain.”

    Munoz said Sentinel is a good cultivar for central and north Florida. It is not recommended for growers in south Florida where conditions are different.

  • Florida Farmer Looking Forward to 2021

    Here’s hoping for a bountiful blueberry crop and good market in 2021.

    Florida farmers are used to adversity. Between occasional hurricanes, unpredictable market prices and challenging international trade from competitors like Mexico, no season is stress free in the Sunshine State.

    “It’s not an easy profession. It seems like more paperwork, more everything all the time; more disease, more pests, more regulations,” said Florida blueberry producer Ryan Atwood. “You throw the (coronavirus) pandemic on top of it.”

    COVID-19 was an added challenge no one saw coming which makes producers like Atwood glad this year is nearly over and can focus on the 2021 season.

    “It was a difficult year as you know. The coronavirus hit right in the middle of our season. It was a big challenge. Thankfully, we limped our way through it. I’m looking forward to a better year next year, I can tell you that,” said Atwood, who lives in Mount Dora, Florida and is one of the state’s blueberry leaders. “I’m kind of beyond it now. It’s in the past. It’s in the rearview mirror. I’m looking forward to 2021 and looking at what does that bring us. I’m looking forward instead of looking back nowadays.”

    COVID-19 Impact

    If there ever was a time of not reflecting on the past, it is this season. Atwood’s blueberry crop was early in 2020 due to a mild winter and high temperatures that accelerated growth. However, when Atwood started picking high volumes of blueberries, which was around March 18, is when the pandemic shut down the country.

    Blueberry growers in Florida and Georgia adapted to restaurants being closed and new guidelines and regulations for keeping their workforce healthy. But part of Atwood looking forward is understanding the challenge of producing a crop during a global pandemic. He and others will not be caught off guard when harvest season rolls around in 2021.

    “When it hit last year, it was totally unknown. Sometimes the fear of the unknown is the greatest fear. You’re not sure if you should stop. You don’t know if you should keep going,” Atwood said. “I think this year it’s better in the sense at least you know what you’re dealing with. You have systems and procedures in place, which we implemented last year, too. We sanitized our restrooms more. We had things we implemented more and more but you created them as you were on the go. This year we have those procedures in place for this coming season.

    “I feel more confident on handling it. Probably the more important part for us, the marketplace shouldn’t be as disrupted.”

    International Trade

    As if a pandemic was not enough, Atwood and other farmers had to contend with imports from Mexico that drove market prices down. Atwood is fan of America having its own domestic food supply.

    “I just don’t see where it’s in our best interest to allow these foreign competitors into our market when we have a domestic supply of fruit,” Atwood said in April.

    Hopefully, consumers will soon feel the same way.

  • New UF Blueberry App First Phase in Two-Part Project

    File photo shows blueberries.

    A new University of Florida (UF) smartphone app will provide immediate help to the state’s blueberry producers who are gearing up for the upcoming season.

    It is the first phase of a two-part project that Patricio Munoz, the UF/IFAS blueberry breeder and an assistant professor of horticultural sciences, tackled in hopes of consolidating chunks of information into one place that is easily accessible.

    Munoz

     “We wanted to release it right away because the season is coming. We’ve been telling the growers we’re going to release this and we decided to release it by phase. The phase one is just this and the second phase is going to be the cultivars. At least they’re going to have something to help them as quick as possible,” Munoz said.

    He said the app tailored towards blueberry cultivars will be released later.

    App Background

    The UF/IFAS Blueberry Growers Guide phone app was released on Dec. 1. Growers can access information vital to blueberry production every year, specifically disease and insect management.

    “The university, my colleagues have done a very good job generating this information. It’s just that nobody has put it together the way that we did it right now. We didn’t put the content together, we just organized it,” Munoz said. “We did work a little bit in the content, too, of course but most of it was done by colleagues in entomology, plant pathology and production.”

    Valuable Crop in Florida

    According to a UF press release, blueberries are a $60 million-per-year crop in Florida. Munoz estimated there between 5,200 and 5,400 acres with between 60 and 80 producers in the state.

    A key advantage that smartphone apps provide producers is they do not have to carry a bulky growers guide into the field anymore. All the information they need is on their smartphones.

    “That’s the assumption is that every grower has a smartphone nowadays. That’s why we put it together for both android and also iPhone. It should work in both systems,” Munoz said.

    “Everybody has either one of them. It will make life a lot easier for a lot of people. Then if you’re in a place that doesn’t have a good signal you can download the whole thing and use offline as well.”

  • U.S. Blueberry Growers Form New Alliance to Seek Import Remedies

    File photo shows blueberries.

    WASHINGTON, December 16, 2020 – Blueberry growers across America today established a new coalition, the American Blueberry Growers Alliance, to seek relief from rising imports that are harming their businesses. The Alliance will provide information and support to an ongoing U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) investigation into the serious injury caused by increased imports of fresh, chilled and frozen blueberries under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974.

    Blueberry imports are sourced from several countries in the Western Hemisphere. Imports rose by more than 60% between 2015 and 2019. Imports from Peru and Mexico have increased by 1,258 and 268% during that same period, respectively, driving blueberry prices down by double digits, which has had a devastating impact on the domestic blueberry industry.

    Alliance members are asking for bipartisan support from the U.S. government and Congress to use existing trade laws to remedy the injury to U.S. growers, support hard-working blueberry farmers, and preserve and enhance a U.S.-grown blueberry supply. The Alliance is also warning that in addition to injuring domestic businesses and livelihoods, rising imports expose American consumers to products from countries with poor food safety protocols.

    “We have been telling Washington about unfair trade practices for years,” said Jerome Crosby, CEO of Pineneedle Farms in Georgia and head of the Alliance’s steering committee. “Our family farms continue to be harmed by a flood of blueberry imports. We need relief and for our leaders to stand with American growers.”

    “Many family farms have become a casualty of rising imports and are being forced out of commercial production as other countries increase production to deliberately target the U.S. market,” said Brittany Lee, executive director of the Florida Blueberry Growers Association. “If something is not done, we will lose the blueberry industry in the United States.” 

    The Alliance includes blueberry growers in Georgia, Florida, Michigan and California.

    The Alliance recently received support from a coalition of 32 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. In a letter to the U.S. International Trade Commission, the congressional members said: “The significant surge of imports of blueberries in recent years, the timing of such imports during U.S. harvest periods, the extremely low pricing of the imports, and the targeting of the U.S. blueberry market by foreign exporters has had a devastating impact on the blueberry industry…As the Commission develops the evidentiary record in this case, it will be clear that imports are a substantial cause of serious injury to farmers. We urge the Commission to promptly make an affirmative determination in this regard.”

    The ITC plans to hold hearings in early 2021 and then deliver a report on blueberry injury and remedies to the White House. Under Section 203, the President then determines what action to take. To support this investigation, Alliance members are providing data and evidence on how blueberry imports are impacting their production, pricing and marketing activities, especially during the critical U.S. spring and summer harvesting seasons.

    For more information, please visit americanblueberrygrowers.com.

  • In Story of Blueberries and Bees, Scientists Play Matchmaker

    A pollinator on a blueberry plant.

    December 10, 2020

    By: Samantha Murray, grenrosa@ufl.edu, 949-735-1076

    GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Chew on this the next time you eat a blueberry: Every single blueberry is the result of a flower that was pollinated by a bee.

    In other words: no buzz, no berry.

    With that in mind, it’s no wonder blueberry growers bring in hives of honey bees or bumble bees when their blueberry bushes are in flower.

    “We are big believers in pollination on blueberries. We believe pollination helps increase berry size and weight and increases the overall crop yield,” said Ryan Atwood, co-owner of H&A farms, which owns, leases and manages more than 350 acres of blueberries in north and central Florida.

    But pollinating blueberries with bees isn’t an exact science — yet.

    Successful pollination depends on a variety of factors, such as when beehives are introduced or how much buzz a blueberry flower needs to release its pollen.

    Moreover, blueberry growers across the United States report that ineffective pollination is a top concern for their business, as it directly affects the amount and quality of product they can bring to market, said Rachel Mallinger, an assistant professor in the UF/IFAS entomology and nematology department who specializes in pollinators.

    This is why Mallinger and several other researchers from blueberry-growing states have teamed up to develop recommendations and tools to help growers optimize pollination.

    In addition to Mallinger, the research team includes scientists from Michigan State University, Oregon State University and Washington State University. Rufus Issacs, a professor in the department of entomology at Michigan State University, will lead the project, which is funded by a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. 

    “Some years blueberry pollination goes well, other years not so much, so we are looking to help growers take some of the guesswork out of it,” Mallinger said. “Our ultimate goal is to provide a tool we’re calling the pollination planner. The pollination planner will help growers decide how many bees to use and when to bring them in based on their location, climate, size of their farm, and varieties of blueberry they grow.”

    Mallinger and her research team will partner with Florida blueberry growers, including Atwood, to run their field experiments. The Florida blueberry industry is a $60 million-a-year business, and this research on pollination will help support this growing commodity.

    “This research will help us understand the economic benefits of honey bees for pollination and what number of hives are needed to properly pollinate,” Atwood said.

    The multi-state project has several components, Mallinger said.

    “Our contribution in Florida will be to look at our modern southern highbush blueberry varieties and determine their pollination needs and what makes them attractive to bees. Some varieties need to be pollinated with pollen from a different blueberry variety to achieve optimal yields, while others are more self-compatible. Some varieties may hold on to their pollen tightly, others less so. Even the color or size of the flower, or how much nectar it produces, might impact how attractive that flower is to a bee,” she said.

    Identifying those traits is just the first step, Mallinger added.

    “Blueberry breeders are usually trying to develop varieties that have good taste, resistance to pests, things like that. But we don’t think about how likely a blueberry variety is to be pollinated. If we can identify those traits that lead to more pollination, we can inform breeding efforts,” she said.

    Other researchers on the project will develop recommendations for the number of bees — called stocking density — needed to pollinate modern varieties of blueberry. Another component of the project will investigate how weather conditions, such as extreme heat, influences pollination success.

  • UF/IFAS-Developed Blueberry App to Help Growers Battle Diseases, Pests

    UF/IFAS photography

    By: Brad Buck, bradbuck@ufl.edu, 352-875-2641 (cell)

    A new University of Florida app will help the state’s blueberry growers identify and manage disease and insect injuries commonly encountered in Florida before their crop is ruined.

    Collectively, blueberries are a $60 million-per-year crop in Florida.

    Patricio Munoz, the UF/IFAS blueberry breeder and an assistant professor of horticultural sciences, came up with the vision for, and supervised the development of, the UF/IFAS Blueberry Growers Guide phone app, released on Dec. 1.

    “Dr. Munoz saw the need for a field scouting guide for southern highbush blueberries that growers could use on their phones,” said Doug Phillips, statewide blueberry Extension coordinator. “Previously, the only blueberry scouting guide available was a paper guide for northern highbush blueberries, covering diseases and insects typically seen in more northern states.”

    The new UF/IFAS app (type in “UF/IFAS Blueberry Growers Guide”) is available for both iOS and Android operating systems at the Apple Store and the Google Play Store, and it should help farmers who grow blueberries in the Sunshine State.

    Phillips, who works at the UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center in Balm, led this project. He prepared the content and layout for the guide in collaboration with other UF/IFAS scientists: plant pathology Professor Phil Harmon, entomology Professor Oscar Liburd, horticultural sciences Associate Professor Peter Dittmar, and horticultural sciences Professor Jeff Williamson.

    Phillips got help from Jose Delgado, a UF undergraduate who conducted early software development on the app. Delgado earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering in 2019.

    The guide, which will ultimately be divided into multiple modules, is designed to help blueberry growers with various production issues on southern highbush blueberries. Currently, the app serves as a blueberry scouting guide to help farmers scout for diseases, insect pests, nutrient deficiencies and other damage, Phillips said.

    Guide Resources

    Resources in the guide include a diagnostic key, descriptions of symptoms, disease/insect life cycles, recommended management practices, an image gallery and links to UF/IFAS blueberry Extension publications. Users can access this information by using the diagnostic key to help identify symptom or injury causes and the image gallery to compare pictures of symptoms to observed symptoms.

    They also can use a reference listing of diseases, insect injuries, nutrient deficiencies and other symptoms or injuries.

    More functions will be added in the near future, Phillips said. They include a module with detailed information on all UF southern highbush blueberry cultivars.

    “The UF/IFAS Blueberry Growers Guide will help Florida’s growers more easily manage damage from disease, insects, and other causes, and in the future will be a valuable resource for other production issues, including choosing which UF varieties are likely to perform well on their farms,” Phillips said.

  • Slug Management in Blueberries

    Photo by British Columbia Blueberry Field Guide

    Ash Sial, Associate Professor in the University of Georgia in the Department of Entomology, is receiving reports of slug infestations in Georgia blueberries.

    According to the UGA IPM blog, slugs generally lay between 3 and 40 small transparent eggs at one time. Each slug can lay up to 400 per year. The slugs can contaminate the harvested fruit once harvest season approaches. They can reduce the quality by leaving slime trails on the fruit.

    When do Producers Need to Monitor?

    Sial

    The best time to monitor for slug infestations is in early spring around March. Farmers can place small amounts of slug bait near a potential slug habitat. Habitats are the consistently wet and moist areas in the field. Check periodically for activity. Tolerance levels vary according to the end product usage and processor.

    Slugs and snails rarely cause economic damage in blueberries. Treatment is necessary to control them. Several slug baits are registered for use in blueberries. The most widely used and effective are baits with metaldehyde.

    It’s important to bait prior to harvest. This is common if slugs are known to be present.

    Preventative Strategies

    Preventative strategies are helpful for achieving long-term management.

    1. Trellis the blueberry plants to keep branches from touching the ground. This practice reduces the number of slugs gaining access to the plant.
    2. Mow or completely eliminate the vegetation in the plant row and between the berry rows. This can reduce slug habitat.
    3. Keep crates and pallets away from damp soil and grass. It prevents migration of slugs into and under crates taken to the field before harvest.
    4. Use geese as predators to control slug populations.
    5. Eliminate consistently wet/moist spots in the field with good drainage. This reduces favorable habitat for slugs.

    Slugs are soft-bodied mollusks. They do not have a shell. They can be as small as 0.25 inches to 10 inches longs. Their color can vary from yellow to green to brown to black. Some may even have spots or colored patterns.

  • UGA Researcher Part of Grant Studying Efficacy of Essential Oils in Organic Fruit Production

    File photo shows blueberries.

    Organic agricultural production is increasing in Georgia. Jonathan Oliver, University of Georgia (UGA) assistant professor and small fruits pathologist, wants to help producers be more efficient by researching ways to protect organic blueberries from diseases.

    According to UGA Extension, the U.S. Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture awarded a $2 million grant to the team of 15 scientists from 5 universities and the USDA Agricultural Research Study, including Oliver at UGA. While the group of researchers will focus on various fruits, including peaches, mangos and avocados, Oliver’s focus will be centered on blueberry production, the highest value fruit crop in Georgia. All will be seeing if essential oils can help suppress certain pathogens and pests.

    Oliver Comments

    Oliver

    “The essential oils organic grant is actually looking at a lot of different crops in the southeast and whether essential oils could have a role in a disease management program. There is data showing that essential oils can have antifungal properties and things like that if used in the laboratory or the greenhouse. But field studies are lacking,” Oliver said. “Since Georgia is one of the top producers of blueberries in the country and definitely in the Southeast, my role on this grant as the blueberry pathologist at UGA is to look at whether these products can be effective in the field and help our organic growers here that are growing blueberries.”

    Oliver will apply the essential oils in the field in a similar manner that producers apply other products. He’ll also be looking at diseases that affect blueberries after harvest. Will this treatment have a post-harvest impact if applied prior to harvest?

    “Cultural practices are really important in both conventional and organic, but in organic, they’re especially important. As far as chemical management in organic systems, you’re really limited on the types of products you can apply. No synthetic pesticides can be used. Typically, the synthetic pesticides are the ones that are going to be most effective. Usually, organic pesticides need to be applied more frequently to obtain control, if you can obtain control,” Oliver said. “We really need a lot more tools for our organic growers to help them manage diseases.”

    Grant Background

    The four-year project will support researchers who specialize in fruit crop management and physiology, plant pathology, entomology, post-harvest biology and organic production.

    In the research, scientists will:

    • Begin to test plant disease efficacy claims of essential oil products marketed for organic producers.
    • Evaluate organically certified plant essential oils on targeted pathogens such algal stem blotch, brown rot, scabs, gray mold and powdery mildew.
    • Determine the efficiency of essential oils on fruit shelf life through postharvest testing.
    • While arthropod pests are not the primary focus of this research, researchers also will test the efficacy of essential oils against insects including scales, thrips and mites.

    Organic food sales topped $50 billion in the United States in 2018. According to the Organic Trade Association, fruits, vegetables and specialty crops comprised of 36.3% of the total organic sales, which is up 5.6% from the previous year.

  • Smart Irrigation Tools for Blueberry Growers

    Figure 1. A: The University of Georgia Smart Sensor Array (UGA SSA) node is installed in blueberries. The electronics are housed in the white PVC container. The spring allows the antenna to bend when farm vehicles pass overhead. B: The UGA SSA sensor probe integrates three Watermark sensors and can be customized to any length.

    By Vasileios Liakos

    One of the goals of the University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (UGA CAES) is to develop new irrigation methods and tools for crops. Researchers, including myself, Erick Smith, George Vellidis and Wes Porter, have been developing smart irrigation scheduling tools for blueberry growers in Georgia since 2015. Smart irrigation is a new method of irrigation that uses technology and information to make more accurate and faster decisions.

    UGA has developed two smart irrigation tools for blueberries — the UGA Smart Sensor Array (SSA) and the Blueberry App.

    SYSTEM RECORDS SOIL MOISTURE

    The UGA SSA is a system that records soil moisture within fields. It consists of a monitoring system, a commercial server that receives soil moisture data wirelessly, and a website that presents soil moisture data and recommends irrigation rates. The monitoring system consists of smart sensor nodes and a gateway. Each node has a circuit board, a radio frequency transmitter, soil moisture sensors, thermocouple wires and an antenna (Figure 1a). Each node accommodates two thermocouples for measuring temperature and a probe that consists of up to three Watermark® soil moisture sensors (Figure 1b).

    “Soil moisture sensors record soil water tension, and we realized very soon that farmers could not make irrigation decisions based on the sensor readings. It was necessary to convert sensor readings into amount of irrigation,” said UGA precision agriculture specialist George Vellidis.

    To overcome this problem, we utilized soil properties and a model to convert soil water tension numbers into inches of irrigation that is needed to saturate the soil profile. Additionally, farmers can see in real time their soil moisture data to make irrigation decisions for each location in fields using a web-based interface that was developed by UGA.

    IRRIGATION SCHEDULING APP
    Figure 2. Left: The main screen of the Blueberry App tells growers how many hours they need to run their irrigation systems and how many gallons they are going to use. It also allows them to check accumulated rainfall from the past seven days and the expected crop evapotranspiration for the next seven days. Right: Blueberry growers do not have to check the app daily since it notifies users if there is rain at the field and how much irrigation they need to apply.

    Blueberry growers can also use the Blueberry App on their smartphones to schedule irrigation (Figure 2). The app runs a model that uses reference evapotranspiration (ETo) data and the Penman-Monteith equation to calculate the irrigation needs of blueberries.

    The innovation of the Blueberry App is that it is programmed to receive forecasted ETo data for the next seven days for every location in the United States from the Forecast Reference Evapotranspiration service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Precipitation data are received from the Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network and the Florida Automated Weather Network (FAWN).

    UGA has developed a crop coefficient curve that shows the water needs of blueberries in Georgia every year. The goal is to include more coefficient curves from other states. This will be capable if more blueberry growers use the app.

    By knowing the total ETo for the next seven days and the crop coefficient values of the blueberries, the crop evapotranspiration of blueberries can be calculated, and irrigation events adjusted accordingly.

    EVALUATION OF SOIL MOISTURE SENSORS

    Another interesting project, involving soil moisture sensors and blueberries, began a few months ago. The objectives of the project are to 1) compare different commercially available soil moisture sensors in blueberry soil, 2) determine the accuracy of each type of soil moisture sensor in blueberries and 3) determine which soil moisture sensor type is best for use in blueberries.

    Figure 3. Field trials are testing four different soil sensor types in blueberry fields.

    The soil moisture sensors used in this project are Watermarks, Irrometer tensiometers, Aquachecks and Decagons (ECHO EC-5). The selection of these sensors was made based on their popularity in the United States. Table 1 shows advantages and disadvantages of different types of soil moisture sensors.

    This study takes place at a UGA blueberry farm in Alapaha and at two commercial blueberry farms in Alma and Manor. At each site, the four different soil moisture sensor types have been installed close to each other along the beds to collect data to meet the objectives of the project (Figure 3).

    Source: Practical use of soil moisture sensors and their data for irrigation scheduling by R. Troy Peters, Kefyalew G. Desta and Leigh Nelson, 2013, Washington State University.

  • New Blueberry Variety Honors Benefactor, UF Alumnus Alto Straughn

    Shows the ‘Sentinel’ blueberry cultivar. (credit: “Courtesy, Patricio Muñoz, UF/IFAS.”)

    October 29, 2020

    By: Brad Buck, bradbuck@ufl.edu

    When Patricio Muñoz developed the University of Florida’s newest blueberry variety, he wanted to name the fruit in honor of Alto Straughn, a longtime, strong supporter of UF’s blueberry breeding program.

    Muñoz decided to call the new variety the ‘Sentinel.’

    “A ‘sentinel’ is a watcher or guardian,” said Muñoz, a UF/IFAS assistant professor of horticultural sciences. “It is symbolic. We came up with the idea to name the blueberry after Alto because he ‘watched and guarded’ the blueberry breeding program for many years.”

    For years, Straughn, an alumnus of the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences and a former UF/IFAS Extension administrator, owned blueberry farms near Waldo, Florida, northeast of the main UF campus in Gainesville.

    Now in his 80s, Straughn still meets regularly with the UF/IFAS blueberry breeder.

    “Since I arrived at the program, Alto and I have discussed much about blueberries: cultivars, production, packing, marketing and more,” said Muñoz. “Alto has seen the industry from the beginning, and I am glad he has shared all that information with me and the blueberry breeding program team.”

    Scientists first tested the new UF/IFAS variety on Straughn’s farm in Waldo, and later in fields stretching as far south as Arcadia, Florida.

    “So, we have determined that the best area for its production is the central and northern parts of Florida,” Muñoz said.

    Blueberries are about a $60 million-a-year industry in Florida. To put the impact of blueberries into further economic perspective, Florida’s blueberry farmers produce about 10 to 12 million tons annually in Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

    The new blueberry variety ‘Sentinel’ increases the farmers’ yield for central and northern Florida. It’s a low-chill southern highbush variety. UF/IFAS breeds southern highbush blueberries, which are synonymous with low-chill and can be grown in the South, Muñoz said.

    It’s a higher quality fruit than previous UF/IFAS cultivars. It also gives the grower fruit at the best market window, Muñoz said.

    And it tastes good. This variety was tested in multiple flavor panels at UF, and they rated ‘Sentinel’ “high” regarding flavor, Muñoz said.

    The release of the new blueberry variety couldn’t come at a better time, Muñoz said.

    “While 2020 has been a tough year – with hurricanes and COVID, among other issues — some good things are still happening, including a new blueberry that farmers and consumers will both enjoy,” Muñoz said.