Clean crop from minute one: "You don't beat 'Thrips parvispinus' in April, but in August"
Source: HD.com
More and more colleagues share this view: the regional government has brought together more than thirty technicians and industry organisations in an expert working group to agree on common protocols for pepper and nurseries." On exports: does a 5% drop accurately reflect the damage? A recent report on Andalusian horticultural exports from the Andalusian Regional Government's Price and Market Observatory recorded a 5% drop in pepper export volumes for the period September 2025 to April 2026 compared with the previous season.
The question this raises is whether a 5% fall in exports gives an accurate picture of the damage caused by Thrips parvispinus in Almería. "Field studies put yield losses in long-cycle crops and high-density greenhouses at between 20% and 30%, far above 5%.
According to the Andalusian Regional Government, the pepper area actually lost to the pest, plots that have been pulled out, is around 1.5%, although the industry believes the real figure is higher, because the pest is now present in virtually every greenhouse, albeit at very uneven levels. The total pepper area in Almería has already fallen by around 2.5% compared with the previous season, partly because some growers have switched to courgette." "In foreign trade, the figure that really tells the story is not the export value but the volume: in the first half of this season, export volume fell 12.8% against the five-year average.
Why this matters: For operators, this is a water-management story. The useful signal is that direct substrate measurements can help cut drain loss materially without giving up yield or fruit quality, which is exactly the kind of controllable efficiency gain a facility can build on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does substrate sensing matter in free-drain strawberry systems?
Because drain percentage tells a grower what already happened, while substrate moisture and EC data show root-zone conditions directly. That makes it easier to cut water loss without guessing.
What is the operator takeaway from this trial?
If the thresholds are understood well enough, growers can reduce drain water materially while protecting yield and fruit quality, which makes sensing an operational tool instead of a reporting tool.
