- Invisible Fencing, Dogs Protect
Porter’s Strawberries
By Jane Metcalf
Wisconsin Correspondent
When Wisconsin berry growers gathered at Porter’s Strawberries in rural Bonduel on June 2 for the Berry Summer Field Day, the most unique thing they saw was something they didn’t see at all.
To keep wildlife, especially deer, from damaging their strawberries, Allen and Judy Porter have an invisible fencing system, which is backed up by their golden retriever, Hobbs, and Black Labrador, Oreo.
When attending a Wisconsin Berry Growers Association (WBGA) convention, Porter learned about invisible fencing, and he installed his system three years ago. He knows of only five or six apple and other fruit growers in the state using invisible fencing for deer control.
“We used to have quite a deer problem,” Porter notes. “They’d even uncover the straw to eat the plants in February.”
Invisible fencing alone won’t keep deer from his strawberries, but with back-up support from Hobbs and Oreo, who are on duty year-round, Porter has little or no wildlife damage. (Hobbs and Oreo have free run of the invisible-fenced area except during deer-hunting and strawberry picking seasons, when they are housed in their dog house/kennel areas.) The Porters’ abatement measures also keep out opossums, sandhill cranes, turkeys and other wildlife.
Deer control and abatement was one of the topics discussed at the field day, which was sponsored by the WBGA and University of Wisconsin-Extension. Other topics included managing strawberry and raspberry root diseases on heavy soils, pest management, first-year strawberry establishment, spring mulch removal and boom sprayer calibration and maintenance. The Porters also described their operation, including production, equipment, marketing and checkout practices.
Porter’s Strawberries is located at W4314 State Highway 156, just eight miles south of Bonduel in northeast Wisconsin. The 30-acre farm draws customers from a well-populated area, lying 17.5 miles southeast of Shawano, 25 miles west of Green Bay and 25 miles north of Appleton.
The operation is on a part of what was Allen Porter’s family’s home dairy farm. When Porter was in high school, he worked on a truck farm, where he became interested in strawberries. From 1967 until 1975, he was a dairy farmer and, when shoulder problems became insurmountable, he left the dairy business and sold insurance until 1992.
Porter didn’t abandon agriculture while he sold insurance. In 1987, he planted his first strawberries after attending three berry growers conventions. Porter and other family members had picked at a number of u-pick berry farms to see what they liked and didn’t like about other operations. They also considered the type of berries other growers relied on, and picked as many varieties as possible to see how they tasted and stood up under different uses.
“We wanted to know how different operations were run and how the different berries froze up and made jam,” Porter explains. “We still do that.” After starting their first commercial season in 1988 with 5,000 plants, just over a half-acre of berries, the Porters expanded to four acres of strawberries.
“Our main planting (in 1987) was Honeoye and it still is,” Porter notes. “It’s a good producer. They’re winter hardy. They freeze well. They stay just as red when they’re frozen.”
To lengthen the season, they also grow Annapolis for early strawberries and Winona to wrap up the season. They recently planted 4,500 Jewel plants to replace the Winona berries next spring. Strawberries are planted at a population of 8,200 plants per acre.
Porter’s Strawberries typically can count on a two to three-week picking season, but the start of the season can vary widely depending on the weather. One year, they opened for business on June 8; another year it was July 3.
About 75% of the Porters’ strawberries are picked by customers, with the remainder sold pre-picked. A two-door cooler keeps pre-picked berries in top condition until sold.
“The pre-picked part of the business has grown,” Porter notes. “We’ve got an awful lot of building around our area, and husbands and wives are both working in town, and it’s a time thing for a lot of them. The older people are coming out to pick. As long as they can pick, they’ll pick. It’s something they did when they were growing up, whereas the younger people probably didn’t do that. It’s a change in society.”
To facilitate picking, Porter’s Strawberries has one-way lanes and parallel parking around their strawberry field, so people can park close to where they are picking. Customers pick up containers as they drive into the farm, then drive up to the checkout building as they leave.
As customers check out, they can sign up for a drawing held at the end of the picking season. They also can write their name on a postcard, which will be mailed when the next season’s picking is about to begin, eliminating the need for the Porters to maintain a mailing list.
In 1994, the Porters reached their peak of five acres of strawberries, but they cut back to four acres for this growing season. Cutting back will allow them to do a better job and, Porter stresses, their deer abatement measures mean they need less acreage to meet customer demand.
The Porters also frequently face spring freezes. In their first picking season in 1988, cold weather froze their berries. “We got irrigation after that,” he notes. “One night of frost can wipe them out pretty good.”
The Porters’ frost-protection system relies on stand pipes which are 18 inches tall, two on-farm ponds and two power-take-off (PTO) pumps each with a capacity of 400 gallons a minute. While the system works well for frost protection, it hasn’t proven as useful for dry-weather irrigation. In the last two years, Porter’s ponds have dried up, so he recently drilled a well to provide irrigation during dry spring and summer months.
During the picking season, Porter’s Strawberries employs about 10 people, about half of whom are their children or other relatives. Porter’s “seventy-something” mother, Jeanette, works as a greeter and picks more berries than anyone else on the farm. Although Judy Porter works two jobs - as an emergency room nurse and an EMT - she helps with planting, picking, uncovering berries and laying irrigation pipes.
The Porters’ nephew, Brian Porter of Beloit, a student at the University of Wisconsin- Whitewater, has worked on the farm since he was 12 years old. In addition to working with the strawberries, he operates a produce stand at Qualheim’s True Value Hardware store in Shawano throughout the summer, selling a range of home-grown fruits and vegetables, including beans, cucumbers, sweet corn and tomatoes.
Porter’s Strawberries grows about 900 row-feet of raspberries, and Brian Porter sells them at the Shawano produce stand. Because winterkill is a problem, the Porters have selected Killarney (red), Royalty (purple) and Autumn Britten (fall-bearing) varieties primarily for their winter hardiness.
In addition to the strawberries, raspberries and vegetables, Allen Porter also raises about an acre of asparagus. While some is sold pre-picked directly from the farm, Porter carries most of the picked asparagus to his home in Shawano and simply calls customers on a waiting list.
It is the family involvement and interaction with customers that Porter enjoys most about the family’s operation.
“You put a lot of work in during the year, and to see the people come back every year gives you a lot of satisfaction. . . It’s a people business, and that’s the reason I started it.”
