The Fruit Growers News - October 2000


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Strawberry Fields Forever
NASGA tour visits sites in Minnesota, Wisconsin
By Lee Dean Managing Editor
A two-day tour of Minnesota and Wisconsin horticultural sites gave members of the North American Strawberry Growers Association a look at growing fruit crops Upper Midwest style. Tour stops included three strawberry growing operations, the University of Minnesota Arboretum and fruit breeding facility, the University of Wisconsin-River Falls research facilities and a greenhouse/farm market operation. Bauer Berry Farm near Champlin, Minn., relies on a pick-your-own customer base that is at its back door – literally. A chain link fence separates the Bauers’ largest strawberry field from a subdivision while trees have been planted elsewhere as a buffer. That means great care must be taken when spraying the eight acres of berries. Proximity to population is a mixed blessing in other ways. The farm is 30 minutes from Minneapolis and 40 minutes from St. Paul. “There is great picking potential, but most people go to the store. We sell about 5% of our berries pre-picked, but that may change,” said Nancy Bauer, who operates the farm with her husband, Bill. The market is there for pre-picked berries to be purchased by busy people, but the Bauers would have the challenge of securing enough labor. Each strawberry field is in a rotation where it picked for two years, planted into pumpkins and then for the following two or three years in sweet corn. Strawberry varieties include Winona, Sparkle and Annapolis. A new variety called Mesabi was planted on the sandiest and worst soil on the farm, and the results were a great crop of sweet and tasty berries, said Bill. Strawberry season is from mid-June until about the 10th of July. The first wave of pickers arrives at 7 a.m. Harvest shuts down in the heat of the afternoon and resumes in the evening. The Bauers are joined by teenagers who use a system of signs and flags to help keep the pickers in their assigned places. Parking lanes are set up in the fields, and customers drive to their assigned places. The arrangement is a lot of work, but the Bauers say it’s all worthwhile. “We love having people come out,” said Nancy. “That’s our feedback.” Jim and Roseann Lewerer take a different approach at Red Cedar Valley Farms near Menomonie, Wis. They specialize in hiring labor to pick his 10 acres of strawberries and then selling the fruit at six satellite locations in the area. Two sites each are in Menomonie and Eau Claire, with the remainder in Chippewa Falls and Hudson. Customers can stop at the home farm as well to either purchase pre-picked berries or PYO fruit. If anyone in the area has a Chevy Suburban to sell for $1,500, the Lewerers will be interested. That’s precisely the vehicles used for the satellite sales force. Eight Suburbans are used – one for each site and two others for shuttles. Each vehicle is equipped with a banquet table, umbrella stand, banners and signs. Vehicles at the sales points have two shelves that can hold 75 pails each, while the shuttle vehicles have three shelves. The unit of measurement for the farm is the five-quart pail. Each pail pre-picked sells for $11, while each PYO pail is $7. Each pail of pre-picked fruit has the Red Cedar Valley logo on one side and the name of the person who picked the fruit on the other. A hotline number is also emblazoned on the pail for customers to inquire about the availability of the berries. The vast majority of growers are experienced in their professions and live near their farms. That’s true of the Lewerers, too, but this wasn’t always so. “When I bought the farm in 1992, I had no strawberry experience,” said Jim. “And for the first eight years, I lived in Stillwater, Minn. – 55 miles away – and commuted.” Strawberries are a big part of Pine Tree Apple Orchards near White Bear Lake, Minn. The Jacobson family grows Annapolis, Winona and Jewel on its eight acres of strawberry ground. The berries have to be thinned once a year, a particularly important job for the very vigorous Jewel variety. “If you don’t keep them cut, the field, at 13 x 40 spacing, would be a jungle,” said Bill Jacobson. The result is larger berries. This season, two strawberries were taken from the field that together were wide enough to cover a dollar bill. Pick-your-own customers can harvest from 8 a.m. until Noon and 4 to 7 p.m. Bill’s sister Nancy takes care of all group events at the farm and helps with the visiting pickers. The pickers are all funneled into the field through a single entrance. They check in, pick up their containers, then get a wagon ride to and from their assigned places. “We like the wagons. They are entertaining for the pickers and we have a captive audience for instruction,” said Nancy. Three cash registers are in the field checkout stations, which are powered by a generator. Strawberry bakery items are available at the stations as well, and are helpful as add-on sales. Two technical features at the farm are a deer fencing system and wool mulch. The fencing system is not yet completed, but when the gates are installed, it will cost approximately $90,000, said Bill. Farm crews laid down 600 feet of mulch made from lower-quality wool and pressed into a landscape mat. The mulch provides good weed control in the first season it’s used. More needs to be learned about the mulch, including whether it best to lay it down before or after planting. The cost of the mulch is another issue because of the cost of transporting it from Texas. The University of Minnesota’s Horticultural Research Center in Excelsior is the site of small fruit cultivar trials of strawberries. The same trials are replicated at other Minnesota stations to the north in Grand Rapids, the western prairies in Morris and at the USDA-ARS Fruit Laboratory in Beltsville, Md. The facility was started by area farmers in 1908 as a breeding site to come with varieties that could withstand the severe Minnesota winters. The station has come through with varieties such as the Haralson apple, Meteor cherry and Trumpeter strawberry. In all, fruit breeding work takes place today on more than 100 acres at the station. Jim Luby of Minnesota’s Department of Horticultural Sciences, said the first strawberry breeding program ran from the 1940s to the 1960s. After a dormant period in the 1970s, Gene Galletta of USDA-ARS and Minnesota Extension specialist Dave Wildung jump-started the program during the 1980s. The program has produced two cold-hardy berries, Winona in 1995 and Mesabi in 1998. “The objective is good quality, and they have to survive here,” said Wildung. “We want a berry that is firm enough to last, with good flavor, good disease and pest resistance.” Other strawberry related projects on the station include weed control in an establishment year using the wool mulch and other methods and use of a flaming machine to control weeds and as a renovation tool. Across the Mississippi River at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls, Extension specialist Brian Smith directs the fruit research program. The university is the only one in the University of Wisconsin system that does fruit breeding. Breeding trials for June bearing strawberry cultivars have been taking place at River Falls since 1989. Approximately 350 different cultivars and breeding selections are typically maintained in pots on campus. From there, around 5,000 seedlings were planted this season. Strawberry performance trials include comparing nearly 40 of the latest cultivars and advanced crosses with 20 standard cultivars and seven Minnesota varieties. Trial results are used to decide the potential of future cultivars and to make recommendations of current varieties to growers. Two other strawberry-related studies include one on resistance to tarnished plant bug and another concerning the use of compost in commercial growing. Various compost products are being compared with conventional methods under the matted row system. The composts are based on combinations of dairy cow manure/sawdust and horse manure/grocery produce/cardboard.