We’re sweet on strawberries To keep up with growing demand, growers are producing more fruit on existing strawberry acreage. That’s because strawberries grow only in very
Kenny Elwood, left, owner of Lassen Canyon Nursery, with his sister Liz Elwood-Ponce, now retired from the family business, holds a strawberry plant at the company’s greenhouse in Shasta County.
specific microclimates and those areas face increasing urban pressure, said Watsonville farmer Tom Am Rhein, who’s been growing strawberries for more than 40 years. He noted that even as state acreage has trended down, production has remained steady or risen. “That’s really how the strawberry industry would grow,” he said. “It would not be by expansion of acreage. It would be by the productivity of the acres that we have available to us.” Farmers have been able to boost their productivity in large part by planting higher-yielding varieties that also can resist diseases destructive to their crop. These varieties must also taste good, AmRhein said. “You have to have a berry that people want to eat,” he said. Strawberry consumption has grown year over year, and people now buy them all year long, said Rick Toml inson, president of the Ca l i fornia Strawberry Commission. He noted that during the first year of the pandemic, every strawberry-growing region in North America—including California, Florida and Mexico—expanded acreage in response to “strong consumer demand” for fresh and frozen strawberries. He said he thinks “these habits are here to stay.” “It really does feel like this demand is solid,” Tomlinson added. “Strawberries are now the single largest source of vitamin C from fresh fruit for the American consumer.” That’s “fantastic” news for California, which he described as “home to the whole system”—from the nurseries that produce the starter plants to the farmers who grow them out. “That ’s a rea l ly neat at t r ibute rega rd ing strawberries and the connection to the nursery industry,” Tomlinson said.
Ching Lee clee@californiabountiful.com
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