Western Growers (WG) is pleased to announce the addition of Robert Medler as Arizona Government Affairs Manager. Medler brings nearly 15 years of government relations experience and will represent the most influential specialty crop producers in the fresh produce industry in the Arizona State Capitol.
“We are very excited to have Robert joining Western Growers’ State Government Affairs team,” said Matthew Allen, Vice President of State Government Affairs at Western Growers. “He brings a wealth of experience advocating on behalf of employers and is looking forward to utilizing his skills to represent WG member interests in the state of Arizona.”
Lobbying on behalf of the association, Medler will represent WG in all Arizona legislative and regulatory matters as well as monitor, analyze and report on policy recommendations for WG positions. Additionally, as part of his role, he will develop, draft and tactically implement policy strategies or legislation affecting agriculture, specifically relating to the fresh fruit, vegetable and nut sectors in Arizona.
Previously, Medler led the government relations, advocacy and public policy efforts at various associations including the Tucson Metro Chamber and Southern Arizona Chamber of Commerce Association. In 2019, Medler was selected as a “40 Under 40” award recipient from the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Arizona Daily Star.
“Western Growers is the preeminent advocacy organization for the agriculture community,” said Medler. “I am humbled and honored to join the Western Growers’ team to ensure our members have a strong voice in Arizona. Today’s policy decisions will have generational impacts; let’s make sure they are the right decisions.”
Medler earned a bachelor’s in Political Science & Communications from the University of Arizona and his master’s in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. He currently resides in Marana, Arizona.
The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is seeking a grower representative with operations in the Fresno County area to sit as a member on the Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Committee. The Committee advises the CDFA Secretary on activities associated with the statewide citrus specific pest and disease work plan that includes – but is not limited to – outreach and education programs and programs for surveying, detecting, analyzing, and treating pests and diseases specific to citrus.
Committee members receive no compensation but are entitled to payment of necessary travel expenses in accordance with the rules of the Department of Personnel Administration. The term for one grower representative from Fresno County expires on Sept. 30, 2023. Applicants should have an interest in agriculture and citrus pest and disease prevention. Individuals interested in being considered for a committee appointment should send a resume by Feb. 15, 2021 to the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Division, 1220 N Street, Sacramento, California 95814, Attention: David Gutierrez.
For additional information on the committee vacancy, contact: David Gutierrez, Branch Chief, Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Division at (916) 274-6300, or e-mail David.Gutierrez@cdfa.ca.gov.
To identify and prepare the next generation of Western Growers (WG) members for positions of leadership within the Western fresh produce industry, WG has inaugurated the sixth class of the Future Volunteer Leaders Program (FVLP). This year, for the first time in program history, the FVLP welcomes a future leader from Colorado, which became the third membership state in the WG family in 2015.
The following nine individuals have been selected to represent the next generation of industry leaders: • Phillip Adam, Innovative Produce • Mason Brady, Homegrown Organics Farms • Kristen Smith Eshaya, JVSmith Companies • Rocky Hampton, LIDCO • Tracy Jones, Booth Ranches • Colby Pereira, Braga Fresh Family • Garret Powell, Peter Rabbit Farms • Amber Strohauer, Strohauer Farms • Grant Talley, Talley Farms
“The increasing number of FVLP alumni serving on our board of directors is testament to the value of this leadership program,” stated Western Growers President and CEO Dave Puglia. ”This incoming class is a vibrant group and I look forward to their participation and future industry leadership.”
Over the course of the next two years, the Future Volunteer Leaders will shadow current members of the WG Board of Directors during board meetings, learning about federal, state and local issues affecting the Western fresh produce industry. Additionally, during the second year of the program, Class 6 will travel to Florida to tour a host of agricultural operations as part of an exchange program with the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association’s Emerging Leader Development Program. Future Volunteer Leaders will also participate in agtech initiatives through the Western Growers Center for Innovation & Technology, as well as engage in media relations and social media efforts.
Since the program’s inception in 2011, seven FVLP alumni have graduated into a seat on the WG Board of Directors, including six who are on the current 2021-2022 board: • Alexander Muller, Pasquinelli Produce • Brandon Grimm, Grimmway Farms • Eric Reiter, Reiter Affiliated Companies • J.P. LaBrucherie, LaBrucherie Produce • Neill Callis, Turlock Fruit Company • Stephen Martori, Martori Farms
Click here to visit the FVLP website and learn more about the Class 6 participants.
About Western Growers:
Founded in 1926, Western Growers represents local and regional family farmers growing fresh produce in California, Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico. Western Growers’ members and their workers provide over half the nation’s fresh fruits, vegetables and tree nuts, including half of America’s fresh organic produce. Connect and learn more about Western Growers on Twitter and Facebook.
Members of the American Blueberry Growers Alliance (ABGA), a group representing U.S. domestic blueberry farmers, today provided information to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) during a hearing on the impact of rising imports during the U.S. growing and harvest seasons. American blueberry growers across the country – mostly small, family-run farms – have been devastated by an influx in blueberry imports by 75 percent in the past five years, according to U.S. import data.
“Because of booming domestic demand, we should be enjoying a market in which there is room for both domestic and foreign growers to profit,” said Jerome Crosby, Chairman of the ABGA Board of Directors and owner of Pineneedle Farms in Willacoochee, Georgia. “However, foreign government policies targeting the United States market and large corporate import interests have combined to bring massive volumes of blueberries into our market, increasingly during periods that in the past provided growers with the bulk of their revenues and often all of their profits for the year.”
“The massive increase in Mexican imports during our harvesting season has crippled the Florida blueberry industry and threatens its very existence,” said Brittany Lee, Executive Director of the Florida Blueberry Growers Association and owner of Florida Blue Farms. “Over the period 2009 to 2019, we saw imports from Mexico increase by 2,111 percent. We have experienced a significant decline in price per pound for fresh blueberries in Florida, and a huge loss of market share.”
Farmers said the U.S. blueberry industry has made extensive marketing efforts over many years to educate purchasers and consumers about blueberries, which has increased demand. “Foreign producers are taking the benefit of those efforts, in some instances by creating industries out of nothing and exploiting cheap labor and poor environmental regulation overseas,” said Rex Schultz of Heritage Blueberries in Bangor, Michigan and President of the Michigan Blueberry Advisory Committee. “Producers in foreign countries are totally dependent on our market, and they have every incentive to keep shipping more and more product here. This is not a sustainable situation for the American blueberry farmer.”
Imports have also had a devastating effect on blueberry farmers in Western states. “Ten years ago, imports filled an important role by ensuring supply of fresh berries in the few months is no longer the case,” said Jayson Scarborough, a blueberry farmer in Central California. “Imports from Mexico and Peru, in particular, now enter our market throughout our harvesting period in California. Prices for these imported berries are extremely low, which means that when we begin to sell our harvests, the price point has already deteriorated significantly due to the presence of large volumes of imported fruit in the market.”
Farmers said that massive amounts of fresh blueberries coming in from Mexico and South America often arrive without a buyer. “Peruvian product can arrive in massive shipments, with hundreds of thousands and even millions of pounds of perishable fresh blueberries on one ocean-going vessel that has been in transit at least two weeks before being unloaded at U.S. ports,” said Shelly Hartmann, owner of True Blue Farms in Grand Junction, Michigan. “When these blueberries are released all at once onto the fresh market, they cause prices to crater. This pushes domestic production of blueberries grown for the fresh market into the frozen market.”
In addition, several members of Congress also testified before the ITC in support of American blueberry growers, including Reps. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-Ga.), Gregory Steube (R-Fla.) and John Rutherford (R-Fla.).
The U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) is conducting a global safeguard investigation into imported fresh, chilled or frozen blueberries under Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974. The ITC will determine if the dramatic increase of foreign berries is “a substantial cause of serious injury, or the threat thereof” to American blueberry growers.
About American Blueberry Growers Alliance
American Blueberry Growers Alliance (ABGA) is a national association representing blueberry growers and farmers in the United States. ABGA provides a unified voice for blueberry growers in states across the country, including California, Florida, Georgia and Michigan, advocating on behalf of their interests and for the long-term viability of the domestic blueberry industry. For more information, visit: americanblueberrygrowers.com.
An Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) sample – confirmed positive for Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas), the bacteria that causes Huanglongbing (HLB) – was collected from a residential property in the Fallbrook area of San Diego County. Confirmed by Citrus Research Board’s Jerry Dimitman Laboratory, this adult psyllid sample is the first CLas-positive ACP found in San Diego County.
While the first confirmation of a CLas-positive ACP in San Diego County is concerning, as of today, HLB has not been detected in any San Diego County trees but surveying and sampling of area trees is ongoing. This find signals a critical time for homeowners and growers alike to continue to control ACP populations to stop the potential spread of this deadly disease, as oftentimes a CLas-positive ACP precedes the detection of an HLB-positive tree.
The HLB quarantine zone will not be expanded as a result of this CLas-positive ACP detection and CDFA staff is swiftly conducting surveys and collecting samples from HLB host plants that are located within a 250-meter radius around the find, per the ACP/HLB Action Plan.
While treatment is not mandatory for area commercial growers as a result of the detection, San Diego County commercial growers who have additional questions can contact Sandra Zwaal, San Diego County Grower Liaison, at szwaal2@gmail.com.
CLICK HERE for additional information from Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Program (CPDPP) Citrus Insider.
Source: Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Program (CPDPP) Citrus Insider
Historically credited as being the first bacterium ever characterized as a plant pathogen, fire blight is a bacterial disease that leads to significant losses of pear and apple. The role of insects in the spread of this disease has been long studied. In a new study, plant pathologists based at Cornell University and Cornell AgriTech take a hypothesis that has been more or less ignored for 100 years and provided support for its validity.
Fly feeding on the ooze droplet in the experimental chamber (Photo by Matthew Boucher).
According to first author Matthew Boucher, the study describes a long hypothesized but never experimentally supported transmission mechanism for fire blight. Boucher and colleagues show that flies in an apple orchard can acquire the bacterial agent (Erwinia amylovora) of fire blight from sugary droplets exuding from diseased apple trees and subsequently transmit the bacterium to uninfected shoots so long as those shoots are damaged in some way.
“This transmission mechanism is mechanical, the bacterium does not appear to have a close evolutionary relationship with any given insect and may seem inefficient to an unsuspecting observer,” explained Boucher. “However, we show that the massive populations of E. amylovora in the sugary droplets exuding from trees allow flies to acquire enough bacteria for the population to persist in and on flies for as long as seven days in some cases.”
Flies can continually shed bacteria over the course of those seven days, resulting in multiple opportunities for a single insect to initiate an infection.
“Demonstrating that bacterial populations can survive within the insect is important because previous research largely discounted E. amylovora survivability within an insect.” More research is needed, especially under field conditions, but this is an exciting step toward understanding the diversity of interactions between plants, insects, and phytopathogens.
“We also show that insects do not need to have intimated, co-evolved relationships with plant pathogens to be important agents in the disease cycle. There are only one or two similar pathogens in documented research, but there are likely more out there that need to be studied to advance our knowledge of this end of the disease-vector spectrum,” Boucher said when asked what makes his work groundbreaking. “As a collective work, we show the importance of integrating historical literature into modern research and revisiting topics and hypothesis that may not have been technologically feasible to investigate when they were first proposed.”
University of Florida Institute of Food & Agricultural Sciences – Florida citrus growers who face the most severe citrus disease in history notice how citrus trees under oak tree hammocks appear to tolerate the disease. Lukas Hallman believes oak trees may hold a compound that boosts the citrus trees’ ability to tolerate the disease.
Hallman is a graduate student at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Indian River Research and Education Center (UF/IFAS IRREC) in Fort Pierce, in the heart of the world’s premier grapefruit production region. The disease, Huanglongbing, or HLB, is caused by a bacterium and vectored by the invasive insect, the Asian citrus psyllid. Once infected, trees have a reduced fine root mass, yellowing of leaves, and smaller and bitter tasting fruit. In the U.S., the disease’s common name is citrus greening, said Hallman.
“Anecdotal reports from Florida growers claim that citrus trees growing within the drip line of large oak trees have minimal HLB symptoms, while trees nearby, but not under the oak drip line, show severe symptoms,” said Hallman.
Oak Extract was Medicinal During American Civil War
In his literature review of scientific journal articles, Hallman found that compounds from white oak tree bark were used as antimicrobials during the American Civil War. Marco Pitino, a former UF postdoctoral researcher, published the first research study for oak tree extract used in the greenhouse against the bacterium. The work took place at IRREC. Pitino found oak extract would improve citrus trees’ ability to tolerate HLB in the greenhouse.
“The literature review and Pitino’s greenhouse study were enough to form a viable hypothesis for a field study with oak mulch beds under citrus trees,” Hallman said. “Pitino’s work took place in a greenhouse. His findings need field tests, and we need an answer to help the local industry, which has seen their crops drop by 90% in the last 15 years,” said Hallman.
Lorenzo Rossi, assistant professor of plant root biology at IRREC, is Hallman’s graduate research advisor. Rossi persuaded Hallman to apply for a Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SSARE) graduate student grant to fund research of his hypothesis.
Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education Grant
When Hallman began to write the SSARE grant, a large oak tree fell on the IRREC property in a 2019 hurricane. With funds from a UF/IFAS Horticultural Sciences Department A.H. Krezdorn Memorial Fund, and collaboration with Robert Shatters, a research molecular biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rossi and Hallman prepared the tree for mulch. The researchers used it for a bed under citrus trees in a research grove. With the research infrastructure in place, Hallman began to take monthly data from the root rhizosphere under the oak-mulched citrus tree beds.
Rossi said Hallman’s grant application was successful, and in the fall of 2020, he began work to fulfill the project’s objectives. The SSARE grant provides more than $12,000 for the 2-year study to determine if oak mulch will suppress citrus greening in the open field.
“The oak mulch is easier to apply to trees than the oak extract,” said Rossi. “Through the research, we may find oak mulch soil amendments improve the soil and that the compounds in the mulch help citrus trees tolerate HLB.”
The project, “Deploying oak mulch to contain and suppress HLB disease in citrus,” has three objectives: to determine the capability of oak mulch to contain and suppress citrus greening, to measure the effect of oak mulch on HLB-affected citrus physiology, root growth and development, and to study the effect of oak mulch on microbial life biodiversity within the rhizosphere. Hallman carries out daily data collection for the project. Those tasks include soil samples, soil respiration, photosynthesis measurement, and nutrition studies.
Graduate student Lukas Hallman distributes oak mulch on citrus tree beds.
“With the SSARE project, we are able to expand the research,” said Rossi. “In the future, we will need to identify which compounds are beneficial, where those compounds are in the trees, which oak species hold the specific compounds, and how much of the right compounds will control the disease.”
One year into the project, Hallman said he found more nutrients in the root rhizosphere. Also, preliminary findings show that as the mulch breaks down, soil biodiversity increases.
“More nutrients are available to the trees as a result of the mulch breaking down into the soil,” said Hallman. “The nutrients are potassium and phosphorus. We have also found that mulch improves soil texture. Improved soil holds more moisture and requires less irrigation.” Soil that holds more moisture enhances plant root health and the trees’ nutrient uptake, resulting in more fruit and a longer life for the trees, Rossi said.
“The research is a collaboration with the USDA,” said Rossi. “It confirms that UF/IFAS and the USDA are committed to the development of ‘an out-of-the-box’ cure for HLB.”
Longterm outcomes for the research are to improve economic profitability for growers, to improve environmental health by reducing chemical inputs, and to support the surrounding community. In the years from 2006 until 2011, HLB took more than 6,500 jobs from Floridians. Oak mulch could help restore some of those positions, said Hallman.
In other words: No buzz, no berry. With that in mind, it’s no wonder blueberry growers bring in hives of honey bees or bumble bees when their blueberry bushes are in flower.
“We are big believers in pollination on blueberries. We believe pollination helps increase berry size and weight and increases the overall crop yield,” said Ryan Atwood, co-owner of H&A farms, which owns, leases and manages more than 350 acres of blueberries in north and central Florida.
But pollinating blueberries with bees isn’t an exact science — yet. Successful pollination depends on a variety of factors, such as when beehives are introduced or how much buzz a blueberry flower needs to release its pollen.
Moreover, blueberry growers across the United States report that ineffective pollination is a top concern for their business, as it directly affects the amount and quality of product they can bring to market, said Rachel Mallinger, an assistant professor in the UF/IFAS entomology and nematology department who specializes in pollinators.
This is why Mallinger and several other researchers from blueberry growing states have teamed up to develop recommendations and tools to help growers optimize pollination.
In addition to Mallinger, the research team includes scientists from Michigan State University, Oregon State University and Washington State University. Rufus Issacs, a professor in the department of entomology at Michigan State University, will lead the project, which is funded by a $2 million grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
“Some years blueberry pollination goes well, other years not so much, so we are looking to help growers take some of the guesswork out of it,” Mallinger said. “Our ultimate goal is to provide a tool we’re calling the pollination planner. The pollination planner will help growers decide how many bees to use and when to bring them in based on their location, climate, size of their farm, and varieties of blueberry they grow.”
Ebony Taylor, front, then an undergraduate student in the UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, and Jon Elmquist, former lab manager in Mallinger’s lab, looking at flowers on blueberry bushes. Images were taken prior to national guidelines of face coverings and social distancing. Photo by Rachel Mallinger
Mallinger and her research team will partner with Florida blueberry growers, including Atwood, to run their field experiments. The Florida blueberry industry is a $60 million-a-year business, and this research on pollination will help support this growing commodity.
“This research will help us understand the economic benefits of honey bees for pollination and what number of hives are needed to properly pollinate,” Atwood said.
The multi-state project has several components, Mallinger said.
“Our contribution in Florida will be to look at our modern southern highbush blueberry varieties and determine their pollination needs and what makes them attractive to bees. Some varieties need to be pollinated with pollen from a different blueberry variety to achieve optimal yields, while others are more self-compatible. Some varieties may hold on to their pollen tightly, others less so. Even the color or size of the flower, or how much nectar it produces, might impact how attractive that flower is to a bee,” she said.
Identifying those traits is just the first step, Mallinger added.
“Blueberry breeders are usually trying to develop varieties that have good taste, resistance to pests, things like that. But we don’t think about how likely a blueberry variety is to be pollinated. If we can identify those traits that led to more pollination, we can inform breeding efforts,” she said.
Other researchers on the project will develop recommendations for the number of bees — called stocking density — needed to pollinate modern varieties of blueberry. Another component of the project will investigate how weather conditions, such as extreme heat, influence pollination success. — By Samantha Murray, University of Florida Communications
A coalition of agricultural and business employers has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court challenging the COVID-19 related emergency temporary standards (ETS) recently approved by the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board (Board). The complaint alleges, among other things, that the Board lacks statutory authority to impose many of the sweeping measures of the ETS on California employers.
For California’s multi-generational farmers, the health and safety of their employees and the consumers they serve is their top priority.
“In the weeks and months following Governor Newsom’s emergency declaration in March, California farmers and processors moved quickly to implement dramatic new safety practices aimed at mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace,” said Dave Puglia, President & CEO of Western Growers. “While these measures helped reduce transmission in workplaces, this virus has swept through communities large and small in spite of lockdown orders and mask mandates, and through every sector of the economy as well despite extraordinary efforts by employers and employees alike. The Board imposed unrealistic, unfounded and economically harmful standards in total disregard of these realities. We have no choice but to seek judicial relief.”
The standards promulgated by the Board are unprecedented and sweeping. They were adopted with little public notice or opportunity for comment based on a purported “finding of emergency” and a declared need for immediate action, even though it took the Board nine months to enact these rules. Furthermore, Cal/OSHA staff insisted the ETS were not necessary for the agency to enforce the continually evolving general and industry-specific guidelines for the prevention of COVID-19. As stated in the complaint, “the ETS does not solve a crisis as much as it creates one.”
“We take this unfortunate yet serious action because we believe there are unconsidered mitigation steps that have and would continue to better protect farm workers while allowing our farmers to continue to produce a consistent supply of fruits and vegetables,” said Christopher Valadez, President of the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California. “As this pandemic has shown us over the last several months, it is imperative that science and data drive policy. That is at the core of what we seek in this lawsuit.”
The ETS create significant new obligations and liabilities for employers, and subject well-meaning California farmers and other businesses to additional enforcement actions and substantial penalties. The practical effect of these emergency standards is to shift the public health and economic costs of COVID-19 monitoring, investigation, compliance and remediation onto employers, all without any consideration of the financial damage inflicted on businesses already struggling to recover from the pandemic.
“These regulations will disrupt food supply operations all along the line, but it will be especially hard on our 20,000 small family farming members,” said Jamie Johansson, President of the California Farm Bureau Federation. “They and their employees are the unsung heroes of the pandemic but once again, they must react to a rule handed down by fiat instead of going through a deliberate regulatory process where the voices of farmers would be heard. We hope the court forces government to follow the law.”
It is important to note that the ETS will have a disproportionate impact on California farmers and their employees since one aspect of the regulations is to substantially reduce and eliminate vitally needed agricultural housing during a statewide housing crisis. A reduction in already-scarce housing will directly impact farmworker communities and harm rural economies across the state that depend on agriculture.
The lawsuit filed by lead attorney David A. Schwarz, Kent R. Raygor and Barbara Taylor, with Sheppard Mullin, argues that in enacting the emergency regulations without due process, the Board failed to explain the causal link between the ETS and the emergency situation to be addressed, or to adequately justify the necessity of the new rules. Additionally, the complaint contends that many of the regulations have nothing to do with workplace health or occupational safety but are designed to address non-work-related COVID-19 exposure risks.
Enjoy the following article featuring two new strawberry varieties out of the University of Florida that may prove to be of value to West Coast growers in the near future.
A white strawberry? Not red? Yes, you “read” that right. And it smells a little like a pineapple. It’s also novel in that it’s the first white strawberry to go to market in the United States. Just in time for the west-central Florida strawberry harvesting season, which runs from now until the end of March, University of Florida Institute of Food & Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) is releasing not one, but two new varieties – and the white strawberry is one of them. The other: another cultivar that UF/IFAS’ primary breeder says tastes oh-so-good.
Neither variety has a name yet. They’re known by numbers, which is typical early in the cultivar-release process. So far, they’re known as ‘FL 16.78-109’ (the white strawberry) and ‘FL 16.30-128’ (the red strawberry), said Vance Whitaker, a UF/IFAS associate professor of horticultural sciences and a strawberry breeder.
“Because the white strawberry is being test-marketed this year, there has been a lot of interest in it,” said Whitaker, a faculty member at the Gulf Coast Research and Education Center. In fact, a grower told Whitaker that some chefs like the new fruit.
When it’s ripe and ready to eat, it is white inside and out, with a slight pink blush on the skin and red seeds, he said. “The flavor is very different from a typical strawberry, sweet but with a pineapple-like aroma,” Whitaker said. “White strawberries have been popular for some time in Japan, but this is expected to be the first white strawberry on the market in the United States.”
You can find white strawberries in nature, he said. Breeders have harnessed this naturally occurring trait, crossing white strawberries from the wild with modern strawberries to create something different in both appearance and taste.
Here’s how the white strawberry came about.
In 2012 strawberry seeds from Japan were sown at the University of Florida, and a few small plants recovered. The seeds were sown, and a few small plants were recovered. The pollen from these plants were crossed with a Florida variety. The seedlings from this cross-produced fruit that ranged from white to pink to red, Whitaker said.
“Commercial trials have been promising so far,” he said. “Pickers can tell when the fruit is ripe when a slight pink blush develops on the side of the fruit that is most exposed to the sun, and when most of the seeds turn red. By 2022, these new white strawberries should be available in U.S. grocery stores. They will probably be marketed as “pineberries” because of the pineapple aroma.”
Whitaker also touts the consistently even red color and conical shape of the new red variety, making the fruit more attractive.
Here’s how the colors differ in the two strawberries: The red from a typical strawberry comes from pigments called anthocyanins. White strawberries produce much lower amounts of these compounds in their flesh than red strawberries, Whitaker said.
As harvest arrives, farmers will welcome the new red and white strawberries from UF/IFAS, Whitaker said. UF/IFAS researchers and the Florida Strawberry Growers Association estimate strawberries generate about $300 million annually for those who farm them.
Out of the 10,000 acres of strawberries in west-central Florida, the new red strawberry may occupy as much as 300 acres in Florida during the 2021-2022 season, and if it continues to perform well, that number could grow.
The white strawberry, or “pineberry,” will be grown on fewer acres since it is a new specialty product. It will take time for farmers to become comfortable growing it, and it will also take time to educate consumers about this new fruit.
“The new red strawberry is notable for its outstanding flavor,” Whitaker said. “Because of its high sugar level, it tastes somewhat similar to (another UF/IFAS variety called) Sensation®, which is currently one of the leading varieties in Florida, yet with a more intense flavor due to the fruit’s higher acid content.” — Brad Buck, University of Florida Institute of Food & Agricultural Sciences
