Happy August from the Guédot Lab! Here is an update from the raspberry fields provided by our PhD student Hanna McIntosh:

This has been a strange start to the field season with university shutdowns due to COVID-19 and the acceleration of movements for racial justice after the murder of George Floyd. In the midst of those major events, doing research seems like a low priority. But, the Guédot lab has been able to continue forward with reduced versions of most of our research projects. Personally, I’ve stayed motivated to focus on my research because I want to help Wisconsin (and worldwide) growers manage a major invasive pest more sustainably. Crop pests don’t stop just because we’re in the middle of a global pandemic!

This is my second field season on my PhD research, so I was able to collect a second year of data for my ongoing project. I’m evaluating plastic mulches as a cultural practice for managing spotted-wing drosophila in raspberry agroecosystems. In May, I set up the 3 mulches we’re testing at our grower-collaborator’s farm, and will be collecting data on adult fly populations and larval infestation of fruit.

A few months into the field season, the plants have grown substantially and we’re harvesting the first raspberries at our experimental plot at the West Madison Ag Research Station.

Stay tuned for updates on other lab members’ projects!