Heather and I have been out visiting berry farms for the past two weeks and we are right in the middle of blueberry and spotted wing drosophlia (SWD) season so this month’s Smart Marketing article from the Dyson School looking at the economics of exclusion netting in organic blueberry production was very timely. They looked at different price, variety and market channel scenarios and factored in the additional cost of using exclusion netting or the reduced cost of not using organic insecticides compared to the baseline use of organic insecticides.

According to their analysis, exclusion netting controls SWD under most of the scenarios better than organic pesticides and provides more financial benefits. Either management method was found to be better than doing nothing.

Source: Kwon, E; Pinto, A and Gomez, M (May 2024) Economic Analysis of Using Exclusion Netting for Spotted Wing Drosophila Management in Organic Blueberry Production Systems. Smart Marketing Dyson School, Cornell University.