Embrapa launches complete book on strawberry culture

During the ceremony celebrating the 25th anniversary of Embrapa Clima Temperado (Pelotas, RS) in the first week of July, the book Morangueiro was launched, edited by researchers Luis Eduardo Corrêa Antunes, Carlos Reisser Júnior and José Ernani Schwengber. A copy of the work was symbolically delivered to the president of Emater/RS, Iberê de Mesquita Orsi - a special partner in promoting the off-ground production technique among producers - and also to the other partners honored at the event. 

The book is the result of cooperation between the South Korean organization Rural Development Administration (RDA) and Embrapa. It is a complete work - 22 chapters in 589 pages - about technologies for strawberry cultivation, providing information to expand knowledge of this production chain. In particular, the work recommends new strawberry cultivars presented and tested as more adapted to the climate and soil characteristics of Brazil.

It contains the main information about strawberry cultivation, generated by around 50 professionals, from Embrapa, universities and state research, technical assistance and rural extension institutes, meeting the demands of producers, technicians, students and others interested in obtaining, through dedication to this culture, income and sustainability in their agricultural activity.

The book presents cutting-edge technologies for strawberry cultivation. One of them is the off-ground production system, also called semi-hydroponic cultivation, which is in its 11th chapter. The first records of this type of cultivation, in Rio Grande do Sul, were in Serra Gaúcha, at the end of the 1990s, due to studies carried out by Embrapa Uva e Vinho (Bento Gonçalves, RS) in order to improve this already existing technology. in other regions. This form of management has been adopted in recent years in practically all traditional strawberry production regions in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The Company contributed to better solutions for the application of management methodology and the use of production techniques.

According to researcher Luis Eduardo Corrêa Antunes, UD innovated this technique by presenting to the application, through a closed production system, the reuse of inputs and the use of fertilizer at the exact moment of need, making production more environmentally sustainable."This method has several advantages, such as reducing the labor burden for rural producers, also highlighting the possibility of them having more control over that production. In fact, producers are migrating from on-ground to off-ground cultivation - between 40% and 50% of producers already adopted in the Pelotas region", declared the researcher.

For the president of the RDA, Yangho Lee, the result of the publication is one of the forms of confidence in future technical cooperation treaties signed with Embrapa: "The focus could extend to various fruits for the development of agriculture in both countries".

Interested parties can have access to the book Morangueiro, free of charge, through the repository www.infoteca.cnptia.embrapa.br...