Although it will be another six months before Plant City’s farmers will be able to evaluate this year’s strawberry season, so far, the weather has treated the community’s famous crop favorably.
“The weather is delightful,” said Ted Campbell, executive director for the Florida Strawberry Growers Association. “It’s perfect right now. There have been no monsoon rains.
“We’re always optimistic,” Campbell said. “Farmers are always optimistic.”
In the past month, strawberry plants have found their new homes within the long beds throughout the community. The weather — cool and dry — has been kind to this early, delicate stage, but the forecast is just one of many factors that can make or break a strawberry season.
Several local farmers already have had to replant their crops because of disease. Plants must be irrigated heavily in the beginning stages for the roots to grow. Disease is spread more easily during irrigation.
Still, Campbell said he already has seen blooms in some of Hillsborough County’s 11,000 acres of strawberry fields.
Once plants bloom, they are about 30 to 35 days from being picked. When they are ready to be harvested, workers can pick the plants about every three days.
Farmers hope the weather stays consistent — and that Plant City avoids a devastating cold snap similar to the one that occurred in 2010. It lasted about 12 to 14 days in January, killing or stunting crops.
“We had the freeze of all freezes,” Campbell said.
But, warm temperatures also can have a detrimental effect. The last two years have been unusually warm, which made the plants produce much faster. This led to oversupply and depressed prices.
And, of course, there still are concerns regarding competition from Mexico. Companies have been moving to Mexico to escape labor costs and regulations. Furthermore, Mexican strawberries enter the market during the same time as Florida, between Thanksgiving and Easter.
“Anyone who has taken a basic economics class knows that when the supply is tight, prices go up, and when there’s an oversupply, prices go down,” Campbell said.
Campbell said the recent storms and hurricanes that have hit Mexico during the summer may give Florida growers a little relief. He also hopes one strategy will alleviate the issue.
“There’s room for everyone if we can raise consumption,” Campbell said. “Berry consumption has been on the rise.”
Sales of United States fresh berries will continue to expand by 7%, according to a 2012 report by Rabobank’s Food and Agribusiness Research and Advisory Group.
But the upward sales momentum doesn’t negate the fact that farmers still will be challenged by competition and labor shortages.
Labor shortage comes about because of a variety of factors, including immigration laws, public settlements with workers, many of whom are undocumented, and domestic workers not willing to do the job.
In Florida, labor represents half the cost of fruit, because strawberries plants cannot be planted and picked by machines. About 200 million plants have to be planted at the beginning of the season and picked every three days for four months.
Toward the end of the season, when prices drop, the labor supply is squeezed even tighter.
The lack of labor can leave good berries left on the plant to spoil.
Despite recurring problems, the industry continues to adapt. This year, a new variety will be tested by about a dozen different farmers. Called Florida Sensation, the new variety has shown to maintain fruit size throughout the season and, of course, is delicious. Campbell said Sensation has won every taste comparison test he’s seen — whether it be amateurs or trained testers.
“It has a lot of promise,” Campbell said. “It has the best flavor profile we’ve seen.”
Sensation was developed by the University of Florida.
It takes about three years for the new variety to be ready for larger-scale production. Newer varieties tend to push out the old varieties. Strawberry Festival has been around for about 10 years.
“It’s had a commercial lifetime that is unheard of,” Campbell said. “It’s one of the best varieties UF has ever created.”
About five years ago, Strawberry Festival was grown in about 65% to 70% of Plant City fields.
Expanding upon Strawberry Festival, Florida Radiance has been cultivated for around four years. Radiance is easier to harvest than Strawberry Festival and yields slightly larger berries.
Contact Amber Jurgensen at ajurgensen@plantcityobserver.com.
THE PLANTING PROCESS
In the age of mechanization, the process of planting strawberries is quite the opposite. A whopping 200 million plants have to be planted each year — all by hand — in a two- to three-week window.
The fields are prepared in September, with the soil being treated for fungus, weeds and other pathogens. During this time, the strawberry plants are on their way to Florida, shipped from northern nurseries in refrigerated trucks.
The beds are formed using a tractor, which raises the soil up about a foot in long rows. Everbearing strawberries, in contrast to June-bearing strawberries, require their feet to not be wet, so they must be high.
Plastic is wrapped over the beds. It is then perforated by a tractor and equipment to ensure proper spacing. About 19,000 plants are planted per acre. Like machines, laborers take a pile of plants, sliding them along the beds and pushing each one into the perforated holes into the soil below.
The semi-dormant plants have bare roots and a few leaves at the beginning. Farmers must water them heavily for new root growth to start. It’s a dangerous time in the plant’s life. The transplants could dehydrate in the 80- and 90-degree fall weather.
After two weeks of nurturing, new leaves begin to appear, and the plants are on their way to producing the winter strawberry crop.
VARIETIES
There are two types of strawberries, each with their own unique varieties.
• June-bearers put on their crop for three weeks in late spring or early summer. Long days and warm temperatures are necessary for flower formation in the June varieties. June bearing strawberries produce more runners that everbearing strawberries.
• Everbearers produce fruit during spring, summer, fall, or during the fall and winter months in Florida. Everbearing varieties can produce flowers during either long or short periods of daylight.
FARM TO FORK
Florida has about a four-month strawberry season. Farms employ about 1.5 workers per acre and two per acre during the peak month. More than 16,000 pickers harvest more than 3,000 acres daily.
In a sense, strawberries are kept on life support once picked. The harvesters are the doctors, and the refrigerated trucks are the ambulances.
Because strawberries are living organisms, once picked from the bush, they begin to die. Strawberries are mostly water, so dehydration has to be minimized by slowing respiration while shipping. This is done with refrigeration.
Harvesting is done mostly in the coolest morning temperatures. Pickers place the fruit into plastic clamshells, which then are packed into flat, one-layer cartons with holes for air circulation. Called flats, they are stacked on pallets for easy handling. Fruit picked in the morning is usually loaded to an outbound truck the same afternoon.
Full pallets are trucked from the field to nearby cooling facilities. There, the pallets are lined up with tarps to direct a powerful airflow throughout the center of each package for several hours. The airflow will drop the strawberry’s core temperature to about 34 degrees.
After the cooling process is complete, pallets will be stored in large refrigerated rooms with high humidity to discourage dehydration.
Once the pallets of strawberries are ready to be shipped, they are moved to refrigerated docks, onto refrigerated trucks which takes them to supermarket distribution centers to be placed on specific refrigerated trucks. Finally they make it to the supermarket, onto the shelves and into shoppers’ baskets. Part of the cold chain, the strawberries are sold as quickly as possible.
Even as far north as Boston and Montreal, from the ground to the grocery only takes about two to five days.