2025 Year in Review
A year of field work, research, communication and connection across the Pacific Northwest berry industry
Throughout 2025, our work took place across commercial fields, research projects, industry events and the communication channels connecting growers, researchers and industry members across the region.
From supporting farms and collaborative research in the field to bringing people together through events and marking 25 years of the Small Fruit Update, here’s a look at some of the work that shaped our year.
Industry Impact
25 years of the Small Fruit Update
In 2025, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Small Fruit Update.
Over those 25 years, 1,083 individual newsletters have been distributed. The Small Fruit Update achieved a 68% engagement rate through email and more than 90% engagement through its dedicated webpages.
Bringing the industry together
Our team facilitated two in-person events and hosted two others, supporting growers, researchers and the wider Pacific Northwest berry industry:
- Caneberry Production Workshop
- SWD IPM Workshop
- Pacific Northwest Insect Management Conference
- NCSFR Annual Conference
Communication milestones
We maintained stakeholder communication with regional USDA-ARS researchers amid national-level changes affecting federal personnel, helping preserve important industry relationships and research connections.
Branding milestones
We continued strengthening our organizational identity and communications through a new logo, branded sponsorship materials, advertising materials and employee handbooks.
We also migrated to a new RFA system, ARIEL.
Field Services
Grower Impact
Our field work in 2025 combined practical grower support, applied research, export certification and collaboration with researchers and regional partners.
We:
- Conducted applied on-farm research toward the development of an Integrated Pest Management strategy for managing Spotted Wing Drosophila in blueberry and caneberry fields.
- Conducted beneficial monitoring for three farms working toward Bee Better and other regenerative agriculture certifications.
- Served as a third-party certifier for 13 registered export-market farms, facilitating the export of more than 5 million pounds of fresh blueberries to East Asian markets.
- Partnered with USDA-ARS collaborators to collect berry samples across six counties to assess the population establishment of recently released SWD parasitoid wasps.
- Conducted regional surveys and testing in Oregon for Scorch Virus in cooperation with regional partners under an OBC grant, collecting 101 field samples during 2025.
- Provided field validation and collected data for novel bee and pollination technologies in collaboration with OSU.
- Collected and entered field data supporting the development of ground-based remote sensing and advanced analytical technologies.
- Supported 22 farms with IPM monitoring and advisory services that were not available through other industry providers.
Export and pest-clearance work
Field activities associated with this work included:
- 230 lbs salt used
- 48 gal vinegar used
- 50 gal wine used
SWD Monitoring & On-Farm Metrics
Monitoring throughout the season provided a substantial body of field data around Spotted Wing Drosophila activity.
SWD larvae sampling results
Across the season, 163,476 individual berries were sampled through 1,108 samples.
Notably, two-thirds of the larvae were discovered during the final week of September 2025.
Connecting field work with grower resources
SWD resources on the NBF website achieved a 94.5% engagement rate, with visitors spending an average of 2 minutes and 12 seconds on the resource pages.
Those technical and production resources live on Grower Resources, where growers can continue to access practical information and regional resources.
Looking ahead
The numbers capture part of the year, but much of the work behind them happened through relationships—with growers opening their fields to research and monitoring, researchers collaborating around regional questions, and industry partners helping information and resources move where they were needed.
That work continues as we build on what we learned in 2025 and support the research, field work and connections shaping the Pacific Northwest berry industry.