Posts Tagged: strawberries
Small strawberry industry makes a big splash
Strawberries aren't a large industry in the San Joaquin Valley. Only about one percent of the state's crop is grown on the valley floor. But strawberries' annual arrival on primarily small-scale farms and sale from roadside stands is hailed annually by the local news media.Yesterday, Fresno's ABC Action News ran a report on the effect of recent rain storms on strawberry production. The story featured Southeast Asian grower Nelson Yang, who expressed relief that the rain seems to have stopped before damaging his crop.
Reporter Dale Yurong also interviewed UC Cooperative Extension agricultural assistant Michael Yang (no relation to Nelson Yang) about the fate of Fresno County's 2010 strawberry crop.
"When you have rain like this, most of the time the fruit will rot," Yang said. However, because the majority of the crop is not ripe yet, the fruit is firm and less susceptible to damage.
Warmer weather forecast for the end of this week is sure to open up the strawberry stands, according to a story in today's Fresno Bee.
"It never really feels like spring until local strawberries arrive," Fresno Bee food reporter Joan Obra wrote.
Obra published her annual rundown on local strawberry production, a report that includes a map to local farm stands. She talked to UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Richard Molinar about the varieties buyers can expect to find.
Chandler is a longtime favorite, but has a short shelf life. Albion has large, firm berries that are very sweet. Other popular varieties are Camarosa and Seascape.
Conventional wisdom says the newer varieties are not as sweet at Chandlers, but “we’re talking about minute differences,” Molinar was quoted.
Rural Madera County.
Strawberry season in California is all year
The combination of UC's successful strawberry breeding program with an array of north-to-south micro-climates allows California producers to harvest strawberries somewhere in the state practically year round.This year's wet, cool winter, however, is getting some of California's traditional springtime strawberry powerhouses off to a slow start, according to UC statewide strawberry specialist Kirk Larson, based at the UC South Coast Research and Extension Center in Orange County. There haven't been too many frost or freeze events in Southern California, but it has been well below normal temperatures, resulting in uneven ripening.
UC has an undeniably critical role in the success of the state's strawberry industry. UC-developed cultivars are grown on 65 percent of California strawberry acreage. Speaking to the productivity of UC varieties, those plants produce 85 percent of the state's fruit.
"The big beneficiary of all of this is the consumer," Larson said. "Because there is just so much good fruit, the price is usually affordable."
One of the most popular UC varieties, Albion, was selected by Larson and UC geneticist Doug Shaw for its flavorful, sweet berries, productivity and long shelf life. Other popular UC varieties are Palomar, San Andreas, Diamante, Camarosa and Ventana.
Shaw noted that many California place names and plant variety names honor the state's Hispanic heritage. Shaw wanted the new variety to honor California's English heritage, in the person of explorer Sir Francis Drake.
"But I discovered that 'Drake' is a bad name for a strawberry," Shaw said.
Sir Francis Drake dubbed California 'Nueva Albion' when he claimed the territory. Albion, the oldest recorded name for the island of Great Britain, became the label for a strawberry variety now grown on about 15,000 acres in California.
More information on the UC Strawberry Breeding Program is available on its Web site.
UC event documented in photos, but not in spirit
The beautiful strawberry stand photos that graced a New York Times story yesterday about the locavore movement were shot at a UC event last Friday designed to remind Sacramento residents about the beginning of their local strawberry season and promote two UC initiatives to help local growers.
It was great that Time's photographer Max Whitaker showed up, but it would've been nice to have credited UC for the purpose of the gathering. UC researchers received a half-million-dollar grant from USDA to work closely with Southeast Asian farmers in Sacramento and Fresno counties on improving production practices, ensuring food safety and expanding their markets.
Not that the Times story wasn't interesting. It focused on a new advertising campaign for Lays Potato Chips that extols their connection to farmers and local communities. The story, written by Kim Severson, said food producers and large-scale farming concerns are embracing a broad interpretation of what eating locally means.
"This mission creep has the original locavores choking on their yerba mate," Severson wrote.
In fairness, the article did touch on the second program promoted at last week's strawberry stand event, but without mentioning UC. The "Grow Local and Buy Local" initiative - a collaborative effort with UC and the Sacramento Farm Bureau that is funded with a $50,000 grant from the Sacramento Board of Supervisors - is designed to take advantage of the close proximity of Sacramento's farms and consumers.
Part of the money is being used to encourage 3,000 area farmers to grow acres of what the Severson calls "grocery store crops," like strawberries and artichokes instead of "commodity crops," like safflower and alfalfa, or to sell more fruit fresh, rather than sending it to canners.
The fresh produce can then be marketed as "local" and sold to nearby hospitals, schools, jails and other institutions that want to buy food grown nearby, and sold direct to consumers at local farmers markets, flea markets and road side stands.
The New York Times wasn't the only media outlet to come to the strawberry stand. Sacramento County UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor Jenny Broome said representatives from the ag publication Capital Press, KCRA Channel 3 News, and the Elk Grove Citizen covered the event.
Sacramento strawberry stand.
UC studies the use of compost to restore burned areas
Scientists at UC Riverside will apply compost to wildfire-ravaged land after the flames have been doused to determine whether it helps reduce erosion and water pollution and restore vegetation. The project is one of several to be undertaken with funding from the California Integrated Waste Management Board aimed at finding uses for what is expected to be an abundance of compost made from organic waste diverted from landfills, according to a story in the April issue of BioCycle.
The Waste Management Board plans to cut the amount of organic materials now going to landfills by half in the next 10 years. Meeting that goal will require an additional 15 million tons of organic materials to be recycled annually.
The Riverside scientists will quantify the benefits of compost on fire-damaged land by absorbing water, thus reducing surface flow, and by dissipating the energy of rainfall. The study will also attempt to quantify the ability of compost to promote the growth of micro and mesofauna (microbes, worms, insect larvae) in the fire-damaged soil, the BioCycle story says.
Another UC Riverside study funded by the Waste Management Board is focused on using the compost in strawberry, lettuce and tomato production.
Developing crop-specific compost specifications helps farmers avoid using mismatched or poor quality composts, which could result in lower crop yields, according to the article.
Valley strawberry farms get a publicity boost
The second best thing about May -- the first being Mother's Day, of course -- is sweet, fresh and flavorful Central Valley strawberries, especially those purchased at a roadside stand next to the field where they were grown. Even as the number of small-scale strawberry growers dwindle, the extraordinary fruit is getting some ink in Valley newspapers.
Today, the Sacramento Bee ran a business-section article about Southeast Asian farmers featuring Lo Saetern, who has grown "impossibly sweet strawberries" on 25 acres south of Sacramento for 11 years.
The article was prompted by a UC press event slated for 10 a.m. tomorrow at Saetern’s strawberry stand, corner of Florin and Elk Grove-Florin roads, Sacramento. The media are invited to taste fresh strawberries and hear about University of California and Farm Bureau efforts to support local farms, according to a UC news release.
The Sacramento Bee story said a research team, led by UC Berkeley's Jennifer Sowerwine, is seeking new ways to bring Mien- and Hmong-grown berries to market, including a pilot program to provide berries to Sacramento City Unified School District's lunch program. The program will serve 19,000 schoolchildren fresh local strawberries once a week.
Many Hmong and Mien immigrants were farmers in their homeland and have translated their knowledge to their new world.
"Under the radar, through family connections, the farm became the primary means for information and for the transferring of cultural institutions," Sowerwine is quoted in the story. "They're finding patches of land that are close to roads, at the threat of development and maintaining a bit of green in places that were once agricultural."
This week the Fresno Bee ran a follow-up to an April article on finding local, environmentally green strawberry stands. Food writer Joan Obra devoted her Tuesday column to reader feedback on the green strawberry story. As Obra often does, she sought assistance from the UC Cooperative Extension office in Fresno. Agricultural assistant Michael Yang was able to help her determine where certain preferred strawberry varieties are being grown.
UC researchers work with a Southeast Asian farmer.