2012 - Washington Red Raspberry Commission

2013 WASHINGTON RED RASPBERRY COMMISSION
RESEARCH PROPOSAL
New Project Proposal
Proposed Duration: Three years
Project Title: Red Raspberry trellising demonstration plot for development of automation
technologies
PI: Manoj Karkee
Co-PI: Julie Tarara
Organization: WSU-CPAAS
Organization: USDA-ARS
Title: Assistant Professor
Title: Research Horticulturist
Phone: 509-786-9208 Phone: 509-786-9392
Email:manoj.karkee@wsu.edu Email: julie.tarara@ars.usda.gov
Address: 24106 N. Bunn Rd.
Address: 24106 N. Bunn Rd.
Address 2: Address 2:
City/State/Zip: Prosser, WA 99350 City/State/Zip: Prosser, WA 99350
Cooperators: Qin Zhang, WSU-CPAAS Tom Walters, WSU/USDA
Year Initiated 2013 Current Year 2013 Terminating Year 2015
Total Project Request: Year 1 $11,451 Year 2 $9,698 Year 3 $2,098
Other funding sources: None (will apply to SCRI Jan 2014)
Description:
This project will establish and administer sites in Mt. Vernon and Prosser where researchers,
growers and others can present, discuss, implement, and evaluate practices for raspberry training
that will facilitate mechanization of at least part of the labor-intensive pruning and tying
procedure for red raspberries. The Prosser site will serve for demonstration and prototype testing
by the engineering group at WSU-CPAAS (Karkee, Zhang). At Mount Vernon, we propose
workshops during the 2013 and 2014 pruning/tying seasons to discuss and test training options.
Machine harvestability will be evaluated during harvest; the group will reconvene in December
2013 and 2014 to evaluate systems’ potential for mechanized cane removal and tying. A set of
existing plots at Mt. Vernon is currently planted in a randomized complete block design to four
common raspberry varieties: ‘Meeker’, ‘Chemainus’, ‘Saanich’ and ‘Cascade Bounty’. These
plots will accommodate up to six potential training systems per cultivar. An additional set of
plots at Mount Vernon contains randomized plots of ‘Meeker’ and ‘Cascade Bounty’, and can
accommodate up to six additional training systems per cultivar. Results from 2013 will support
an SCRI proposal on mechanization of berry systems, to be submitted in January 2014.
Justification and Background:
The issue we plan to address: Pruning and tying are expensive, labor-intensive processes,
accounting for over $500 per acre, or 32% of the annual direct costs of growing red raspberry in
Washington (MacConnell and Kangiser, 2007). Karkee and Zhang established through a series of
stakeholder meetings and interviews (2012) that red raspberry cane removal and tying are among
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