2017 ASHS Annual Conference

California continues to be the major producer of strawberries in the U.S. and supplies about 79% of the volume. Recent acreage trends have declined from 40,816 in 2013, to the current 36,141 acres in 2017. Nearly all of the strawberries are annual plantings with 30,074 acres planted in the fall for winter, spring and summer harvest. Summer plantings for fall harvest are projected to be 6,067 acres for 2017. Fall plantings in the fruiting fields are made using bare root plants from high elevation nurseries. Summer plantings are made with frigo plants that have been cold-stored after digging. Organic produced strawberries for 2017 include 3,307 acres of fall planted and 740 acres of summer plantings. Approximately 75% of California strawberries are harvested for fresh market and the remaining 25% are frozen for processing. Most California strawberries are consumed domestically, but about 16% are exported with the major markets being Canada, Mexico, Japan and Hong Kong. Recent acreage surveys find that about 59% of the acreage is planted with University of California varieties. Among the major UC varieties are 'Monterey', 'San Andreas', 'Fronteras' and 'Cabrillo'. About 38% of the acreage is planted with proprietary varieties while the remainder of the acreage is planted with University of Florida and publicly available varieties. The major challenges for California strawberry producers include labor shortages, fumigant regulations and high land costs. Farm labor availability is a major problem in California and with 100% of the fruit picked by hand. There is much interest in mechanical harvesting of strawberry fruit, but so far, no commercial harvesting machines have come into widespread use. Methyl bromide is no longer available for use in fruit productions fields for soil disinfestation and has been replaced by chloropicrin and 1,3-dichloropropene. However, fumigant use regulations require buffer zones near sensitive sites like hospitals and schools, which complicates the placement of strawberry fields. There is much interest in developing nonfumigant production systems for strawberry and among these methods anaerobic soil disinfestation is the most promising so far. It is likely that work on developing nonfumigant production systems will continue for the foreseeable future.