Strawberry cultivation in California
Strawberries (Fragaria × ananassa) in the United States are almost entirely grown in California – 86% of fresh and 98% of frozen in 2017[1] – with Florida a distant second.
The Driscoll's company began with strawberries here and still grows and sells here; they have since expanded to other states, countries, and types of berries.
[1] For Santa Barbara County specifically, Cooperative Extension SB provides detailed recommendations and practices.
[9] The use of soil fumigation was highly praised and widely recommended by the California Strawberry Advisory Board in 1967.
[11] So vital was the most common fumigant – methyl bromide – that the ongoing phase out of the chemical has sent growers and researchers scrambling for alternatives.
[1] If lower temperatures and high rain persist unusually long, such a control failure will cost 50–60% of the yield – at this point the season is abandoned and 100% of revenue will be lost.
Daugovish et al., 2012 finds the introduction of drip irrigation has reduced asymptomatic Colletotrichum acutatum presence in nurseries, and thus lower anthracnose in the resulting transplants.
[18] They also identify seven accessions which are fw1 (recessive susceptible homozygous) yet nonetheless resistant, and thus predicted to carry yet-unidentified novel genetics.
[1] Palmer & Holmes 2021 finds increasing resistance/declining efficacy to most of the most commonly applied ingredients, in Oxnard.
[20][21] The Beet Armyworm (BAW, Spodoptera frugiperda) skeletonizes leaves, damages crowns, and then begins eating the berries.
[21] BAW is especially a problem of the southern and Santa Maria strawberry zones, but can damage transplant crowns anywhere in the state.
[21] A good part of control relies only on weed management in the surrounding area, depriving BAW of alternate hosts.
[21] Further control may be needed using insecticides including methoxyfenozide, spinetoram, Bacillus thuringiensis ssp.
[21] Organic control requires all of the non-insecticide methods (aggressive weeding, wasps, virus) plus Bacillus thuringiensis ssp.
[26] In the Central Valley, farm hedgerows, treelines, and woodlands will have 2x–3x the number of species and 3x–6x the population size of birds than an unvegetated edge of a field.
), spotted spurge (Euphorbia maculata Linnaeus Small), and yellow nutsedge are common annual weeds in strawberry.
[12] UC IPM recommends[27] pesticide selection criteria, resistance management strategies, application practices, and environmental considerations.
[13] Captan is by far the most common, averaging 7.3 applications per season, pyraclostrobin 2.5, cyprodinil 2.3, fludioxonil 2.3, boscalid 1.8, fenhexamid 1.4, pyrimethanil 1.2, penthiopyrad 0.9, sodium tetraborohydrate decahydrate 0.8, fluxapyroxad 0.75, and there were rare uses of Polyoxin D, Neem Oil, Fluopyram, Banda de Lupinus albus doce, Trifloxystrobin, Bacillus subtilis, Reynoutria sachalinensis, Thiram, Streptomyces lydicus, Bacillus amyloliquefaciens, Thiophanate-methyl, Aureobasidium pullulans, Hydrogen dioxide, and Peroxyacetic acid.
[1] So beneficial was fumigation in this crop that Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall selected it as one of the great achievements of the University of California system to photograph for their centennial book.
[35] In 2013 they attempted to negotiate a retirement arrangement in which they would start their own breeding company, licensing UCD's patented varieties.
[35] Shaw and Larson retired anyway in 2014 as California Berry Cultivars, licensed what they could and began to breed from those, and sued UCD for not holding to the previous agreement.
[35] UCD countersued, alleging they had walked away with (stolen) unreleased germplasm and various other intellectual property violations.
[40] UC Davis's Innovation and Technology Commercialization office licenses and sub-licenses[41] all cultivars created by the entire University system.
[42] These are: For Santa Barbara County specifically, Cooperative Extension SB recommends overlapping with two cultivar groups: Short-day and day-neutral.
[8] As of July 2022[update] twelve nurseries are licensed to propagate UCD varieties: Cal, Cedar Point, Crown, Innovative Organic, Jacobsen Pacific, Larse, Lassen Canyon, Monte Vista, Mountain Valley, NorCal, Planasa, and Sierra-Cascade.
