Strawberries and Caneberries

And BOOM the berry season is underway just a few days after the last rain. Most of the flood water has receded, and the industry is on the move. I'm getting pulled right along with it and already initiated two trials in the past two days, with plenty more coming.

The recent flooding on the Central Coast has really put a lot of local strawberry growers in a bad position. Some fields have been underwater several days to a week or more, which has deprived plants of oxygen and sunlight needed for respiration and growth.

Along with the rising waters of the past few weeks, concerns about the status of our strawberries have risen as well. For their part strawberry roots, as you can see from paragraph #6 out of the book "Small Fruit Management by Galleta and Himelrick, depend on oxygen.

The Jan 4 edition of the weekly California Farm Bureau newspaper "Ag Alert" had a very good article written by Ching Lee about the huge amount of strawberry acres planted for 2023.

I was asked by a newsletter to which I contribute for a few remarks on coming 2023; thought they might be worth sharing here too: Get ready for a more muscular and responsive UC Cooperative Extension.