Date of Award:

12-2025

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Plants, Soils, and Climate

Committee Chair(s)

Brent Black

Committee

Brent Black

Committee

Daniel Drost

Committee

Melanie Stock

Committee

Ruby Ward

Abstract

Raspberries are an important high value crop for local markets in Utah and throughout the Intermountain West. However, Utah’s harsh winter and short growing seasons present challenging growing conditions. New primocane-bearing cultivars are becoming available, but many of these produce fruit later than what is needed for local markets. Protected cultivation offers the opportunity to give more consistent production under Utah’s difficult growing conditions for berry crops. Protected cultivation methods include high tunnels, low tunnels and row covers. In addition to protecting against damaging temperatures, protected cultivation also advances crop growth through warming the soil and plants. Combinations of heating methods, including tunnels and direct soil heating were tested on primocane fruiting raspberries and blackberries both in research farm high tunnels and on commercial farms. The effectiveness of these treatments was evaluated based on cane emergence and growth, timing and size of crop, and fruit quality. Results from these experiments showed high tunnels and low tunnels advanced primocane emergence and harvest season compared to open field conditions. Although direct soil heating further advanced primocane emergence, it did not significantly advance fruiting season. Controlled-environment studies showed that cane emergence and growth of ‘Polka’ raspberries occurred between 11 °C to 20 °C. A comparison of seven primocane-fruiting raspberry cultivars indicated that ‘Polka’ and ‘BP-1’ were best adapted to a high tunnel environment in Northern Utah. This work shows that protected cultivation may be suitable for improved reliability of raspberries in Utah, provides guidelines on cultivars to use, and indicates the limits of how much the fruiting season can be advanced.

Download

Share

COinS

Copyright for this work is retained by the student. If you have any questions regarding the inclusion of this work in the Digital Commons, please email us at .