New research has found ways to reduce cherry cracking after heavy rainfalls. Penny Measham from the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture has been studying the causes of large cracks after rain. Ms Measham says the findings have encouraged growers of the high-risk crop. "We've looked at several different techniques that growers can use, techniques that are generally part of normal orchard management such as irrigation and spraying, pruning and found that we can reduce cracking by up to 50 per cent, ah by using these techniques in slightly different ways to normal," he said. Source: news.yahoo.com Publication date: 19/12/2011