Having survived back-to-back hurricanes, Helene and Milton, Florida strawberry growers are showing resilience in getting ready for the December through April season.
Kenneth Parker, executive director of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association, works regularly with University of Florida breeders, extension agents, and growers to help communicate the needs of the Florida strawberry industry. This year particularly, growers are doing their best to ensure Florida strawberries are available for the holidays.
"Florida growers aim to complete planting each year around the first of November," Parker said. "For the most part, the industry has held to this standard through the hard work, dedication, and perseverance of both our growers and farmworkers."
Following the storms, some areas required more effort to get fields back in working order to complete planting. Growers had to wait until the water receded before they could begin their recovery efforts.
"There is no way of accurately predicting yield each season due to all the variables that determine this number," he said. "However, we look forward to meeting the demands of consumers this growing season with fresh, high-quality strawberries."
Vance Whitaker has developed the Ember and Encore strawberry varieties which are bred to resist phytophthora root rot.
Call it coincidental timing, but with the flooding, some growers are now planting two new UF/IFAS strawberry varieties that resist a disease that the plants can get from too much moisture in the soil. UF/IFAS professor and strawberry breeder Vance Whitaker has developed Ember™ and Encore™, bred to resist phytophthora root rot. The resistance could prove helpful to strawberry yields, given the volume of rain that fell and how wet the soil is, Whitaker said.
"Some plants experienced a lot of water. The flooding is most likely to kill a plant that's susceptible to root diseases," a faculty member at the UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center said. "So, these new varieties should help growers maintain their yield as well as provide a new level of fruit quality."
In their first year of commercial use, the two varieties make up about 10 percent of the 14,000 acres of strawberries in Florida. While that's not a huge percentage, Whitaker expects the acreage to rise in future years.
"We have a favorable weather outlook for the harvesting season," he said. "People should expect a typical Florida strawberry season."
It took about four years to develop these new cultivars and get them out to commercial farms, which is pretty normal for a new variety. "The breeding program had to get through the hurricanes and get our trials planted, ultimately for the benefit of the industry," Whitaker said. "We're all in this together. We support the growers, and they've been supportive of us."
For more information:
Brad Buck
UF/IFAS
Tel: +1 (656) 347-8422
[email protected]
www.ifas.ufl.edu