- Florida Growers Adopt New
Native Strawberry Varieties
- By Greg Brown
Associate Editor
- Florida’s strawberry growers are adopting two recently released varieties from the breeding program right in the heart of the state’s strawberry production.
According to University of Florida (UF) strawberry breeder Craig Chandler, the program released Strawberry Festival in 2000 and Carmine in 2002.
Since its release, the Strawberry Festival variety has taken off. This year it accounted for more than 30% of the strawberry acreage in the state. By the next growing season, the variety could be the choice for as much as 50% of the state’s strawberry acreage.
In previous years, as much as 75% of Florida strawberry acreage was planted in just two varieties - Sweet Charlie, an UF-patented variety released in 1992, and a variety called Camarosa, bred at the University of California.
The two varieties will expand growers’ choices, said Chandler, who conducted the research and trials in Dover at UF’s Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, right in the heart of Florida’s 6,000 acres of strawberries.
“We’re very fortunate that our research center is right in the center of this great production area,” said Chandler. “The growers and fields in this area produce as much as 90% of Florida’s strawberry production. And most of it is within a 15-20 minute drive of our center.”
Strawberry Festival has done very well so far. This past year it was actually the number-two variety with a little over 31% of the acreage. It has very quickly done well.
“Strawberry Festival is not a particularly large fruited variety but its has a good, consistent shape. There is not a lot of cull fruit with this variety,” said Chandler. The fruit work well for marketing in the common clamshell containers. He said the variety has good firmness and flavor and a nice deep red color.
Because the fruit are on long stems the strawberry is an easy variety to harvest, said Chandler. It is very easy to spot for the pickers, too.
“Its going to be a real workhorse for the industry,” said Chandler. “The industry has indicated that it could use some other varieties to stretch the season on the front end. They will be planted on over 50% of our acreage next season.”
Florida’s more than 6,000 acres of strawberries have represented as much as $150 million to the state’s economy.
The variety was named Strawberry Festival in recognition of the Florida Strawberry Festival, an annual festival that celebrates the abundant crop of berries harvested in eastern Hillsborough County during late February and early March.
Strawberry Festival is a short day cultivar. It has a vigorous plant that tends to produce numerous runners if planted in early October in central Florida, said Chandler. The fruit is attached to long pedicels (stems), and has an average fruit weight similar to that of Sweet Charlie. The fruit are mostly conic in shape. The external color of fully mature fruit is deep red; internal color is a bright red. Strawberry Festival starts producing ripe berries in December and reaches peak production in early March, right around the time of the annual festival.
Strawberry Festival does not initiate fruiting as early as Sweet Charlie, but in commercial fields during the 2000-2001 season it produced higher early season yields than Camarosa, said Chandler. Strawberry Festival is susceptible to anthracnose fruit rot, colletotrichum crown rot and angular leaf spot; therefore we recommend that fruit growers choose their transplant source carefully to avoid starting off their season with infected plants, Chandler said.
He said there is a need in west central Florida and other winter strawberry production areas for an early ripening cultivar to replace or be an alternative to Sweet Charlie. Carmine was bred to fill that spot. This season was the first for Carmine (pronounced kar-men), and some growers met success with it in test plots, despite the cool wet conditions, according to Chandler.
Carmine has a more compact plant habit than Camarosa, currently the dominant strawberry cultivar grown in west central Florida. A compact plant habit and relatively long and stiff pedicels (fruit stems) result in many flowers and fruit that are exposed. This exposure makes the fruit easy to harvest, but also makes the fruit vulnerable to rain and freeze damage.
According to a release from the university, Carmine’s December yield in 2001 was more than twice that of Sweet Charlie. Carmine appears to be moderately resistant to the two most serious disease problems on strawberries in Florida - botrytis fruit rot and anthracnose fruit rot. In an unsprayed trial during the 2001-2002 season, 7.2% of the Carmine fruit harvested from Feb. 19 - March 15 showed symptoms of botrytis fruit rot, compared to 18.7% for Sweet Charlie, the susceptible control.
Information on nurseries sub-licensed to propagate the varieties can be obtained from the Florida Strawberry Growers Association by calling (813) 752-6822.
