The Favored Strawberry | Documentary

Summary

The documentary "The Favored Strawberry" explores the fascinating journey of strawberries from the fields to the consumer's table. It highlights the historical significance of the fruit, the variety of methods and locations where strawberries are grown across America, and the challenges and triumphs faced by farmers. From small family farms to large Californian ranches, the film illustrates the blend of tradition, agricultural advancement, and economic impact strawberries have in the United States. It also reflects on the cultural importance and the unique taste experiences strawberries provide to consumers.

Highlights

• Discover the rich history of strawberries, once only a seasonal treat, now available year-round 🍓.
• Learn about the traditional and modern farming practices used to grow strawberries across the US 🚜.
• Explore the cultural significance of strawberries in various communities, from Iroquois to modern American traditions 🌿.
• Meet passionate strawberry farmers who share their love and dedication to producing quality berries 🌟.
• Experience the strawberry celebration at festivals and markets, highlighting its importance in local economies 🎪.

Key Takeaways

• Strawberries are a global delight, adaptable to various climates and available year-round 🍓.
• From Virginia to California, strawberries have a rich historical and cultural legacy in the US 🇺🇸.
• Strawberry farming is both a science and an art, involving meticulous care and cutting-edge techniques 👩‍🌾.
• Local farmers face challenges with weather and economy but strive to grow the best berries 🍃.
• Strawberries are cherished for their unique taste and are a staple at many festivals and markets 🎉.

Overview

Strawberries, a beloved fruit with a fascinating history, are adored worldwide for their sweetness and vibrant color. The documentary "The Favored Strawberry" takes you on a journey through this fruit’s cultivation and its cultural significance in America. From Virginia’s early plants influencing European gardening to modern Californian farms producing them year-round, strawberries hold a special place in both agriculture and hearts.

The film introduces us to dedicated farmers ranging from small family-run farms to extensive Californian operations, all focused on growing strawberries with care and innovation. Discover how advancements in farming techniques and sustainability efforts are employed to enhance strawberry production, ensuring they are as flavorful today as they were centuries ago.

"The Favored Strawberry" also delves into the socio-economic aspects of strawberry farming, highlighting how this industry supports communities, provides employment, and sustains traditions across the United States. With insightful stories and captivating visuals, this documentary celebrates not just a fruit but a symbol of cultural resilience and innovation.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Strawberry Praise The chapter introduces the program made possible by the Division of Agriculture Center for Agricultural and Rural Sustainability and University of Arkansas's Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism. It opens with a poetic description of strawberry blossoms and ripe berries, potentially setting the stage for a detailed exploration or appreciation of strawberries.
• 03:01 - 09:00: Strawberry Cultivation Across the U.S. This chapter begins with a reference to William Wordsworth's poem 'Foresight', highlighting the enduring admiration for strawberries expressed 200 years ago. It then transitions to a modern perspective, noting the continued allure of strawberries. Despite being a seasonal fruit traditionally, they are now available year-round across the United States, reflecting their demand and widespread cultivation.
• 09:01 - 15:30: Historical Significance and Modern Challenges This chapter explores the agricultural diversity across different regions in the United States, highlighting both historical and modern farming practices. It takes the reader on a journey from Florida's winter fields to California's coastal ranches, and from Texas plains to historic Carolina tobacco farms, showcasing the variety in crop production. The environments vary from Oklahoma's Flint rock hillsides to New Jersey's pick-your-own farms, emphasizing the range of farm sizes from large coastal enterprises to small family-owned operations.
• 15:31 - 22:00: Strawberry Breeding and Innovation The chapter titled 'Strawberry Breeding and Innovation' highlights the labor-intensive process of strawberry picking in the United States, often carried out by immigrants pursuing the American dream. It poetically references Wordsworth, suggesting a divine grace in the strawberry flower, and positions the strawberry as a remarkable creation within the plant kingdom.
• 22:01 - 31:00: Regional Focus: Florida and Oklahoma Strawberry Festivals The chapter titled 'Regional Focus: Florida and Oklahoma Strawberry Festivals' discusses the adaptability and benefits of strawberries. Strawberries thrive in various climates and soils, growing best during cooler months and found across a wide geographical range from the Atlantic coast to Alaska. They are low in calories, rich in antioxidants, nutrients, and vitamins. Strawberries are also visually appealing, aromatic, and flavorful with 81 distinct aromatic compounds. The passage ends with a brief interaction at a marketplace.
• 31:01 - 39:00: Innovative Strawberry Farming Techniques David Dickey, a farmer from the Ozark Hills, is recognized for growing high-quality strawberries. The chapter discusses his innovative techniques in strawberry farming, contributing to the local agriculture scene.
• 39:01 - 53:00: Major Strawberry Production in California The chapter focuses on the rare occurrence of strawberry farming in states like Arkansas, where Dickey is an exception. It highlights that less than 1% of strawberries are grown outside the major production areas of California and Florida. The narrative provides insight into Dickey's farming routine, starting with his cultivation process in late summer.
• 53:01 - 59:00: Local Markets and Consumer Demand The chapter discusses the challenges faced by local farmers due to adverse weather conditions, which impact their crop yields and, consequently, their revenue. The farmers rely on spring harvests, such as strawberries, to generate sufficient income to support their families throughout the year. The emphasis is on the unique taste of freshly picked strawberries, highlighting the appeal of local produce despite the seasonal constraints.

The Favored Strawberry | Documentary Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 - [Narrator] This program was made possible by the Division of Agriculture Center for Agricultural and Rural Sustainability. And the Walter J. Lemke Department of Journalism at the University of Arkansas. (relaxing music) - [Narrator] Strawberry blossoms, one and all. Lurking berries, ripe and red,
• 00:30 - 01:00 then we'll hang on every stalk each within its leafy bower. And for that promise spare the flower. William Wordsworth's poem foresight was written 200 years ago, yet his words and praise of the strawberry as fresh today as ever. And what could be sweeter than a newly picked strawberry, scarlet and sumptuous on a crown of green begging to be savored. Once a seasonal fruit, strawberries are desired and available year round.
• 01:00 - 01:30 From winter fields in Plant City, Florida to sweeping ranches in the valley along the shores of Monterey Bay, California. They're grown on the windy plains of Texas and in the dirt of old Carolina tobacco plantations. On Flint rock hillside in Oklahoma, and you pick 'em farms in New Jersey and lots of places in between. No matter the size of the crop from massive coastal farms to small family fields,
• 01:30 - 02:00 strawberries are still picked by hand one by one often by hardworking immigrants chasing the American dream. Wordsworth was right, God has given a kindlier power to the favored strawberry flower. (relaxing music) The strawberry is a masterpiece among plants,
• 02:00 - 02:30 bountiful and able to adapt to variations in climate and soil. Popular and widely grown, it fares best during cool months and can be found from the Atlantic coast to Alaska. Strawberries are low in calories, packed with antioxidants and full of nutrients and vitamins. They're attractive to the eye, fragrant, and pleasing to taste. With 81 distinct aromatic flavor compounds. - All right - Have a good one. - Thank you, they're six a quart.
• 02:30 - 03:00 - This is David Dickey a farmer from the Ozark Hills. - He's well known around these parts for producing luscious, locally grown strawberries. (machine revs)
• 03:00 - 03:30 Farmers like Dickey are a rare breed. They produce less than 1% of the strawberries grown in this country. As we'll learn, the great majority are cultivated in California and Florida, not in Arkansas where he lives. - I mean, it's always, you know, most farmers will probably tell you it's always exciting getting the crop started. - [Narrator] Dickey begins plowing his one acre field in late summer. (machine revs)
• 03:30 - 04:00 Because of bad weather, he lost money on his crop last year so he is hoping for a spring harvest that will need to generate enough revenue to sustain his family for an entire year. - I'm not gonna have much to sell through the winter, probably up until the end of April when we start getting strawberries. (relaxing music) - There's not a fruit more flavorful than a freshly picked strawberry.
• 04:00 - 04:30 - [Narrator] Horticulturalist, Dr. Curt Rom directs a program to improve the sustainability of strawberries from production through the supply chain to consumers. - The strawberry species are found on essentially every continent of the world. Strawberry was very important in iconography in Europe, starting from the dark ages through the middle ages and was used quite a bit in Renaissance art. It was particularly associated
• 04:30 - 05:00 with pictures of the Madonna or Mary. And so often we became a symbol of innocence, purity, and renewal. - [Narrator] Strawberries grew in the North American continent long before European colonization. Among the Iroquois, the wild strawberry was a symbol of thanksgiving. Other tribes made strawberry bread or mashed berries into a healing tonic.
• 05:00 - 05:30 Roger Williams, Puritan leader of the Rhode Island Colony wrote in the 1600s, "This Berry is the wonder of all the fruits growing naturally in all these parts." The wild berries that Williams and others grew to love were bigger than the small musky flavored strawberries they had known in the old country. Virginia plants were shipped to Europe, favored in French and English gardens. - So when the Virginia strawberry came back in Europe, they saw its value, it was much larger. They started breeding that strawberry
• 05:30 - 06:00 and it actually became a fruit of commerce in Europe, in the 16th and 17th century. And so strawberries from Virginia immediately started to enter into agricultural production. (soft music) - [Narrator] By the 1880s, homesteaders were growing strawberries in the heart of Central Florida, where subtropical winters are mild and sunshine is plentiful.
• 06:00 - 06:30 Business visionary, Henry Plant built a railroad to connect with nearby Tampa, shipping berries up the Eastern seaboard. A town blossomed from the fields, school aged kids went to class all summer and took off in the wintertime to pick berries on their family farms. - Strawberries and Plant City are synonymous, you can't have one without the other. The biggest reason strawberries have succeeded in Plant City
• 06:30 - 07:00 is the art of strawberry growing that has been passed down through the generations of the families that grow berries here. - [Narrator] Total economic impact of strawberries grown around a 25 mile radius of Plant City, Florida. It's estimated at $750 million. Fruit is harvested from Thanksgiving to Easter. 11% of the fresh strawberries shipped to the markets in the US, Canada, and Mexico are grown right here.
• 07:00 - 07:30 - The average cost of producing strawberries is $30,000 an acre annually. A lot of commodities look at us like we're crazy when you show 'em the economics of growing strawberries but these guys, every year they lay it all on the line. - All them shoulders turning red, that's berries to pick. Hope we'd turn out red to green. - Some of the farmland here has been in continuous production of strawberries for over a hundred years.
• 07:30 - 08:00 Six generations deep in some cases. - I come from the era of mules all the up to tractors to modern technology, to now doing drone flying through your field, looking over it. My daddy rolled over in his grave to know that something like that's occurring. - [Narrator] Third generation grower, Carl grooms is a straight talking southerner, who operates fancy farms. A 230 acre plantation framed by Spanish moss, drooping from ancient live Oak trees.
• 08:00 - 08:30 - I'm proud to be a strawberry grower here in Plant City. I've done it all my life and my ancestors has, we're the driving engine of this local community around Plant City. The Berry industry drives that locomotive that keeps the economics of this town going. Let's say it's a lot of picking going on today, there's a lot of berries on the bushes. The sun is perfect, the wind's blowing a lot of berries getting ripe. We need to harvest a lot of berries.
• 08:30 - 09:00 This is sort of the tail end of our season. - [Narrator] Grooms hired 150 migrant Berry pickers from central Mexico to harvest this crop. - I house them, I bus 'em, pay for everything that they need except their food. - [Narrator] The workers rush through rows of ripened fields to qualify for bonus pay. The best and fastest earn up to $200 a day. - So they're making like a winning lottery every paycheck.
• 09:00 - 09:30 Is money they've never seen, nor would they ever have a chance to see until they come here. - The strawberry harvesters are very skilled to understand which berry to pick at its peak ripeness. And yes it's hard work it's long days, and it's hard work. - [Narrator] At the peak of harvest, 14,000 boxes are picked daily at fancy farms, then trucked to a cooling station, a few miles into town. (machine honking)
• 09:30 - 10:00 - So in here, the strawberry pallets are lined up and we bring a top over top of it. And what it does are the cold air blowing through the tunnels
• 10:00 - 10:30 is circulating through the flat berries and it's bringing all the berries down to a cool temperature. So we wanna bring them down to 34 to 35 degrees as quickly as we can. That means that the quality will hold up and overall will be a better berry. - These berries pick today they will be, within a three day period of time. They can be anywhere from Canada to the great Plains of the United States. - This one nice and fresh. (children murmur)
• 10:30 - 11:00 - What if they're green? - Just Leave it there, those are red in a few more days. - [Narrator] The strawberry was among the first fruits to be bred in America, way back in 1830. At the university of Florida Gulf Coast Research Center, a favorite place for school field trips, experiments are ongoing to develop new varieties. - We have an ice chest full of liquid nitrogen, where we are flash freezing our samples. So that later I can determine
• 11:00 - 11:30 which genes are being expressing correlate that to our trait. Strawberries from a hundred years ago, tasted much better than they do today, for a variety of reasons. To bring flavor back, we need to know exactly what those genes are. - [Narrator] Dr. Vance Whitaker, leads a team of research scientist trying to genetically invent a better Berry from cuttings and scientifically controlled crossings. They're testing a colter bar known as
• 11:30 - 12:00 sweet sensation that shows early promise. - Well, sweet sensation was really a berry that was specifically bred for a flavor. A variety In my view, doesn't have a flavor it has flavors. It has a flavor, depending on when you harvest it, what the weather conditions are like, how it's handled. And so our goal with sweet sensation was to get a variety that consistently tasted better, that consumers liked better. - We applied the pollen that we have collected
• 12:00 - 12:30 with a brush we just touch it. And then the receptor is fertilized. - I think if we can continue to produce the kind of quality that can set these berries in this market apart, we will continue to have a good market despite the competition. If we can breed varieties that yield a little bit, continue to yield earlier than they are now say in around thanksgiving and early December, when the prices are really high.
• 12:30 - 13:00 I think that this market will continue to thrive. We're the local source of strawberries in the winter for the Eastern half of the United States. And I think as, the local food movement grows, people recognize that they're paying more attention to where their food is coming from. And I think that's only an advantage for our growers. - [Narrator] From January to April bus loads, arrive at Parkesdale farm market, where folks stand in line for world famous strawberry short cake.
• 13:00 - 13:30 - Can I help you ma'am - One - Number one, - Just one, - Just one number one, sharing. Thank you. - You know, the strawberries down here are all much better since they haven't traveled any distance or anything. They're really good, they really are. - [Narrator] Sliced berries fresh from their own fields, cover a biscuit, smothered with a mountain of whipped cream. - I can tell you what it tastes like.
• 13:30 - 14:00 It's fantastic. - This is, this is a new strawberry. It's not as red as the other, but it's sweeter than them. - We'll cut it in half, so we have short cake on the bottom, a load of berries, another piece of shortcake, another load of berries, some people like ice cream on it, and it has to have our whipped cream. - It's not synthetic it's premium, ice cream and fresh strawberries. You can't hardly beat that. (instrumental song)
• 14:00 - 14:30 - Absolutely delicious, you don't know what you're missing. (children shout excitedly) - One of the fun facts that we like to share with people is that if you laid all of the strawberries that we grow here end to end, they would stretch all the way from Plant City to Seattle and back. - [Narrator] Half a million people celebrate the official
• 14:30 - 15:00 end of the season at the annual Florida strawberry festival. - I'm gonna go right down the backside there, alrighty thanks. - We have five Hobart mixers that mix whip topping every morning fresh. We have about 156 volunteers in our hall, chopping berries and cutting berries. - This place in Plant City, Florida. - [Narrator] It's all thing strawberry at this big fair. And nothing's more fun than the short cake eating contest. - Please stay in your own plate.
• 15:00 - 15:30 Do not eat part your neighbor's plate as we go. - [Narrator] Pin contestants, sit down to gobble up four pounds of afternoon dessert in 10 minutes. - Are you ready? - (crowd) Yeah. - Are you ready? - (contestants) Yeah. - Ready, set, go. (crowd cheers) (instrumental music)
• 15:30 - 16:00 - [Narrator] With three minutes to go, the spoon is removed and it gets all kind of messy. (instrumental music) (crowd cheers) The winner is Leon Silcocks with luck of Florida, (crowd cheers) with a belly full of calories and a piggish trophy to memorialize his conquest. (instrumental music)
• 16:00 - 16:30 - [Narrator] Every spring in Stilwell, Oklahoma, a smaller festival is held where strawberries were once grown in great abundance. 50 years ago, 4,400 acres were planted annually in this part of Eastern Oklahoma. And while only 14 acres are cultivated today, the celebration connects generations of farmers, young and old.
• 16:30 - 17:00 This is Cherokee country, where strawberries are considered good luck, Dylan Collyge, a proud member of the Cherokee nation of Oklahoma is the youngest grower in Adair county. - let's go out here and see what this moisture's done to these things. - [Narrator] He and his dad Jeff, hope to expand their half acre strawberry plot to a bigger farm because as Jeff says, they're willing and nobody else wants to do that hard work anymore. - Typical Adair county rock pile.
• 17:00 - 17:30 This is what we're notorious for isn't it? - Yeah. - He said, man, I'd really like to try that dad. And I said, well, let's just jump off and do it, don't stand on the edge. Let's just jump off the ledge and go do it. - Man. - look at that center. - Yeah, that thing's meat all the way through. - There is no hole, right here behind me, we have about 15 to 20,000 plants and we're going to expand up to 50,000 next year
• 17:30 - 18:00 on our own that we're gonna pick and our you pick, we'd like to put about 35,000 out for a you pick. - Well, you just picked one out you want hun, let me ask you what, what you gonna do with me? - [Narrator] Dylan's mentor is burl Doyle, a retired school teacher and strawberry guru, who farms and runs a roadside country store. - He's been strawberry farming for a long time. Burl, tell me what the secret is to growing in a really good strawberry.
• 18:00 - 18:30 - Well best I know, is good hard work. Taking care of your plants from the time you set 'em out, until you get the harvest completed. But if you'll do that and if you'll keep your plants fed good, they're gonna produce you a good, healthy, big sweet, juicy strawberry.
• 18:30 - 19:00 - He's a blessing to me and my family and everybody else around Adair county. (instrumental music) (machine revs) - We're planting, strawberries. - [Narrator] It's planting season on David Dickey's, Arkansas farm. Like most strawberry growers, he uses plastic culture. His rows are draped in polyurethane sheets
• 19:00 - 19:30 to lock in moisture and keep out weeds protecting fruit from contamination. - We've got a waterwheel planter hooked to the tractor that punches holes in the beds at the right spacing. - [Narrator] Dickey purchased the plants from a nursery in Illinois. When he finishes this job, he'll have 13,000 plants spread over a single acre. Come spring, each plant should produce a pound and a half of fruit.
• 19:30 - 20:00 - Sometimes I feel like I'm making Cadillacs and selling 'em for Ford tar prices. On the strawberries, I usually get my price out of them. (instrumental music) - So in Texas and in Arkansas and around the United States, there's this resurgence of local strawberry production in high tunnels. And in Texas, I actually see a strawberry fever starting to emerge.
• 20:00 - 20:30 - All right. Yes ma'am what do we want? - I need four of these. - [Narrator] It's strawberry day in early May at Lubbock farmer's market. - Strawberry. - Really good. Oh my gosh, those are so sweet. - Texas is not a big producer of strawberries. - Is this the line for strawberries. - [Narrator] With less than 150 acres of commercial production in the whole lone star, state, Texas raised strawberries are a novelty.
• 20:30 - 21:00 - But if you can get strawberries for eight weeks here in Lubbock, Texas that are locally grown here, to me that's personally satisfying. - [Narrator] These berries are grown on the south Plains of west Texas, where it gets hot and very windy. - We can have multiple times a year, 75 mile an hour winds, and it only takes one wind to really knock out a vegetable or a strawberry crop. - [Narrator] Strawberry production, is on the rise on the planes due to research efforts,
• 21:00 - 21:30 headed by Dr. Russ Wallace and his team from Texas A&M. Plants are grown in high tunnels, unheated plastic covered solar, greenhouses that protect from environmental extremes. - Our research has shown that if we can produce some inside high tunnels, we can actually get some really good yields and some really good quality strawberries for our local consumers. Inside our high tunnel is basically prime real estate
• 21:30 - 22:00 because you've already put the cost of a high tunnel, over this land, and a high tunnel can be anywhere from $3,000 up to $15,000 or even more. And so it's a little bit costly, but I think in the long run, you can produce good crops that are higher quality and you can sell 'em for a greater profit. Last year, I got up to about a pound and a half per plant. So I'm looking to try to get maybe two pounds per plant this year. Over the past few years,
• 22:00 - 22:30 I've had growers take my strawberries, sell 'em to restaurants for $5 a pound. - [Narrator] Lubbock strawberries are harvested by young people working for south Plains food bank program that teaches life skills. - These are kids from all across Lubbock. A lot of 'em are at risk, they've had run-ins with the law, gotten in trouble for truancy, shoplifting, other things.
• 22:30 - 23:00 A lot of our kids are doing this job to earn the money to buy their own school clothes and school supplies. - And who doesn't like strawberries, honestly. These kids are learning how to grow 'em, how to take care of them, where they can grow 'em at they're home and hopefully, they would have to use us when they get older, use the food bank. - The strawberries are really good, they have a different fresher, sweeter taste in grocery stores and markets.
• 23:00 - 23:30 - Hey, did you guys wanna try strawberry? They're running out, yeah. - Figured that out, thanks. - We want to build up the idea here around the city, that there are strawberries that strawberries can be produced and hopefully this will increase grower's interest in growing strawberries. - Oh, thank those are really good. (instrumental music)
• 23:30 - 24:00 - [Narrator] It's early December and David Dickey is covering his Arkansas strawberry crop for the winter.
• 24:00 - 24:30 - Today it's about 60 degrees, the sun's out and light wind. So in anticipation of some very cold weather that we could have farther up in the winter, I'm getting the frost blankets or the floating row covers tacked down beside the row today. Oh the curse of rocky ground. - The condition of the strawberry plants right now is excellent in my opinion, maybe even too good.
• 24:30 - 25:00 A lot of the reason for this I would say is we've had an incredibly warm fall and the plant growth has been really good. The other thing is, I've had a lot more time to devote to management of the crop from the time they were planted 30th of September until now. That'll hold it. All right. - And the growth of strawberry consumption in the United States is really impressive.
• 25:00 - 25:30 It's one of the fastest growing fruit crops in the United States. The consumers love fresh strawberries. There's an increasing market in certain sectors for organically produced strawberries. (instrumental music) - [Narrator] Since the great depression, the Vollmers of Burn, North Carolina have been farming. For generations they grew tobacco until the late John Vollmer, known around here as farmer John
• 25:30 - 26:00 had a revelation, the future of tobacco looked bleak, and by the 1990s, the number of Carolina farms had dwindled from hundreds to a few dozen. Farmer John sold his tobacco harvesting equipment and vowed to find a sustainable, healthier crop. - Boy those are good looking. - Aren't they pretty - Up until the idea of strawberries came along. It was like, what do you do? You've got all this equipment, you know,
• 26:00 - 26:30 you're kind of stuck as a tobacco farmer. - [Narrator] When Ballmer switched to strawberries, he decided to grow them organically. Free of synthetic fertilizers and chemicals. - These terms that are being floated around sustainable, organic, pesticide free, hormone free. It is confusing to the customer, what it all means. And the only thing that I can say is the only standard that is approved by the USDA is the organic standard,
• 26:30 - 27:00 the certified organic standard, which has a very specific set of rules that guides the farmer in seed selection, fertilizer, selection, insecticide, pesticides, all of that has to be from a natural source. - [Narrator] Days Russ Vollmer runs the five acre farm
• 27:00 - 27:30 (baby mumbles) - Say yummy. - 60% Of his crop is picked by agri tourists. Who mark their calendars for an April pilgrimage, filling their buckets with vine rip and plum berries. - That one. - That's a good one. Thank you. - Now I can pick this one. - Thank you. - [Narrator] The berries not picked by customers are sorted and shipped to regional markets, responding to the consumer demand
• 27:30 - 28:00 for organically grown fruit. - And whatever I think is bad, I can go ahead and pluck out. And whatever's good I just throw it in the clamshell like that. - We accept the fact that we're gonna have some fruit, that we just can never get to the market. So guess what, we do is we pick it all, we grade it out, what we call number one fruit that goes to our customers. Our number two fruit goes to a company
• 28:00 - 28:30 that uses it for yogurt. - You're welcome, would you like your receipt? - They do pay more, and I have a brand new worker this year. - Hey, how are y'all doing? - That was at the cash register, and he shared with me, he says, I can't believe how much money these our customers are spending on strawberries and they're doing it with a smile on their face.
• 28:30 - 29:00 - Yeah, once you get to know plants, they just like people. They have personalities and demeanours just like people. Strawberries are real, they're real tender, but they're tough. (murmurs) (instrumental music) - Our label says naturally sweet,
• 29:00 - 29:30 certified organic strawberries. And that's what that is. - Well, strawberries as much as any crop I'm aware of is a high technology crop. And the new generation of young farmers that are being trained with technology. And they're aware of using computing, and their handheld devices. They want to use that technology on their farm. (instrumental music)
• 29:30 - 30:00 - [Narrator] 20 Miles west of Washington, DC in German town, Maryland is Butler's orchard. A pick your own family farm established just after world war 2. Strawberry plants are grown in matted rows stuffed with straw forsaking plastic rows found on most other farms. The butlers were forced to replant this field of strawberries due to an unexpected battle with charcoal rot. - It's not something we really want to do,
• 30:00 - 30:30 but we're going back in here this year and replanting bear rooted dormant strawberry plants here in the spring. We're hoping they're gonna grow this spring and summer and fill in, and give us a nice full row to carry on for the next few years. - [Narrator] The future of the orchard is now in the hands of dirt bike riding, Ben Butler, who's taken over the day to day management of the farm from his dad, Wade. - I was very lucky to be born into a farm family.
• 30:30 - 31:00 I grew up just a few hundred yards away and, my backyard was a 300 acre farm, kind of hard to beat. - I was just checking some of your weather data. This is the new interface I was. - [Narrator] Ben has connected with his former teacher, Dr. John Lee Cox, a plant scientist with the university of Maryland, to bring 21st century technology to the farm. - So I think the plan is we're gonna do exactly the same, what we did last year. - Okay. He was a professor of mine back in college and
• 31:00 - 31:30 he had some really interesting things that we did in class. And one of those ended up being a pretty major project for us here as a professional. Which one are we looking at here? This is - This is the.. - [Narrator] They've installed a wireless sensor network that determines air ground and plant temperature. Radio nodes and weather stations collect data on moisture, temperature and fertilizer concentration. - The soil moisture sensors are interesting because we can not only measure soil moisture, we also have a sensor that will measure
• 31:30 - 32:00 soil electrical conductivity. - [Narrator] At critical times during the growing season, when the thermometer plunges to the near freezing mark, the network alerts Ben it's time to crank on the sprinklers. - He watches his wind speed, direction from his weather station, but he's also watching the temperature in his canopies. - Somewhere around 28 degrees is where these open flower blossoms get zapped by the cold. So we're up and up and moving by 34, 35 degrees
• 32:00 - 32:30 and around 33 or 32 degrees, the water's coming on and we're using that to protect our blossoms. (machine roars) - With sensors. We know when to turn the irrigation off, we all know when to turn it on, but it's very hard to know when we turn it off. Strawberries is a wonderful crop to work on because it is so water sensitive. I mean, just fruit size and fruit quality, is exquisitely sensitive to water
• 32:30 - 33:00 and particularly around in the spring period. But it really goes beyond that the technology has got tremendous scope. Some of the new exciting things that we're doing is beginning to develop tools that really can take pest and disease prediction. - Is that deer. - There's no - Deer. - It's just huge having young energy on the farm like this, bringing new ideas, being able to implement new techniques and new technologies.
• 33:00 - 33:30 I did a lot of things the way my dad did 'em and some of those are good and some of those are bad. And Ben and I, we had conversations about, well, what can we do to make this easier, make this better? - Anything that I can use to help me make decisions in a more timely manner and more accurately have a better idea of what I'm doing, that information is gold to us. - I've just got my little toolbox, I'm arriving on the farm and, Ben really understands what
• 33:30 - 34:00 the potential is for those tools. We don't wanna affect yield at all. We wanna save water, but we don't wanna affect yield at all. - Right sure else I'll be coming after you guys. (laughs) Yeah really. (soft music) - Today is Sunday, March 20th of first day of spring. - [Narrator] It's been an unusually mild winter here at David Dickey's, Ozark mountain strawberry farm, but for now he's keeping his plants protected.
• 34:00 - 34:30 - Their temperature right now is about 45 degrees for the past two nights and tonight we're expecting lows in the 25 degree range. - [Narrator] Soon the covers will come off and blooms will begin to produce fruit. At this stage he's optimistic. - One thing that my observation is my thinking is right now due to the warm temperatures in the fall.
• 34:30 - 35:00 We had rapid crown development, So I'm thinking that we're probably gonna have a pretty short and tense season on strawberries. - The USDA had a big breeding effort in the 1950s through the 1970s to help develop appropriate strawberry germplasm for different regions of the United States. During the 1970s, eighties and nineties,
• 35:00 - 35:30 almost every one of those strawberry breeding programs, in the United States disappeared. One of the exceptions was the Rutgers breeding program. (soft music) - [Narrator] For a quarter century, Dr. Goyko Jelenkovic of Rutgers University toiled away in a greenhouse lab.
• 35:30 - 36:00 - When the strawberry project was assigned to me, I was told that I should try to produce by breeding work much better edible strawberries for New Jersey. - [Narrator] He used old fashioned plant breeding techniques, crossing pollen from one flower to another. His objective, develop a flavorful commercially viable berry that could be grown in the garden state.
• 36:00 - 36:30 - to be aromatic, to be sweet and of course, people would love such strawberries. - When Dr. Jay retired, he believed he was close to his goal of producing the sweetest strawberry of the mall. But he feared his research would be abandoned and forgotten. - [Narrator] A team picked up the project and invested another dozen years in the lab. They developed a strawberry that's sweet beyond description.
• 36:30 - 37:00 - In all of our research. We were really looking at that from the very first stages, the smell, the aroma of the strawberry, the depth of flavor, whether or not it had that deep, rich color all the way through and whether or not it could sustain that flavor. - [Narrator] It's patented known as the Rutgers Scarlet. - When we look at strawberries, we look at not only the acid in the strawberry, but we also look at sugar and acid balance.
• 37:00 - 37:30 And we look at the valuable chemicals that are produced, within that strawberry. - [Narrator] The Scarlet and other Rutgers varieties are bred to withstand the cold New Jersey winters. They're sold, where they're grown. - The one thing that we've done with our whole project is to develop a strawberry that has great deep flavor. And this is not a shipping strawberry, this is designed for eating fresh,
• 37:30 - 38:00 designed to attract consumers to the farms and really for local growers to have an opportunity to present strawberries, that's going to bring people out to their farms, and they're gonna say, wow, that straw tastes like what I remember strawberries should taste like. - All right, we have arrived. - [Narrator] Jim Giamarese owns a you pick 'em farm and grows several types originating from the Rutgers labs.
• 38:00 - 38:30 His plants produce fruit throughout the summer. - And the most amazing part of these are sweeter now in August than they are in our normal season, which is like may and June. We have a few varieties that we're working with, one or two of them are just very prolific and they're sweet. And they do set a decent size crown for this time of year, which allows us to get some fruit. - So our objective really is to try to expand our growing season by getting strawberries to reproduce again
• 38:30 - 39:00 in the late summer. By working with different varieties so that we can extend out from four to six weeks to way beyond that. So that we can have a crop as long as possible so that people in our area can have the very best tasting strawberries that they can possibly find. - When you're out in the field planning, you just dig a hole, usually about the depth of the pot. Take the plant out of the pot, you wanna tease the roots a little bit.
• 39:00 - 39:30 So they spread out a little bit more in the hole and you put it in, fill in the hole, and you don't want the plant to be sticking up too high or be buried in too deep. You want it just to be at the level of the crown where, the stems of the plant shoot out. - [Narrator] As for Dr. Jay, he still volunteers in the lab and visits the research station, watching over his creations.
• 39:30 - 40:00 - And it's great seeing it to come to fruition all of Dr Gillian's work over the years. Seeing farmers grow it, seeing consumers taste it, it really is a pleasure to see it all come together. - I think you can breed strawberries for whatever you want. (soft music)
• 40:00 - 40:30 - So thick. - [Narrator] It's harvest time at David Dickey's Arkansas farm. - We've got a relatively early crop, there's a lot of berries here, they're looking really good. The flavor needs to improve some, but I think that as we get a little bit warmer and the nitrogen levels go down in the plants, I think that'll improve greatly.
• 40:30 - 41:00 - [Narrator] His plants are bursting with fat berries and the rush is on to get them picked and trucked to the nearby farmer's market. - I just barely touch 'em and kinda get 'em between my fingers and just kinda break it over. - You got this one. - Yeah, definitely. One of the biggest bottlenecks I've found on growing strawberries, even on a small scale like I do, is getting enough labor to pick at the right time.
• 41:00 - 41:30 Now I want the highest, absolutely highest quality fruit that I can bring. So timing is extremely critical. Everything that we pick today, it may be 150, 200 quarts we'll probably have sold in an hour and a half or two hours. (soft music) - Out in California, new varieties and new technologies producing strawberries,
• 41:30 - 42:00 increased production so much there as to essentially shut down strawberry production in other parts of the United States. And that has made strawberries a completely different crop, where it used to be that springtime, hard to find crop. Now it's become a year round commodity. (soft music)
• 42:00 - 42:30 - [Narrator] The only way to comprehend the enormity of the strawberry ranches of Watsonville California, is to visit the Pajaro valley, and even then the site is stunning. (soft music) 88% of the strawberries produced in the US are grown in California. A $3.4 billion industry. The vast majority of the ranches are family owned.
• 42:30 - 43:00 Some growers contract with a single label while others do business with many different shippers. Harvest in the valley starts in mid-April and continues through October. Producing 100,000 pounds per acre. Somewhere in California, strawberries are being picked year round. In the Watsonville, Salinas area, a single plant can yield up to five pounds of berries and begins producing three months after going into the ground.
• 43:00 - 43:30 Dozens of varieties are grown in California. Phil Stewart is over the north American breeding program for Driscolls. - I don't think there's a perfect strawberry. I think there there's always room to improve. I think of the available strawberries, there may be a perfect straw for a given location or situation. One of the exciting things about plant breed is that you can always do better and there's always new challenges. And I think
• 43:30 - 44:00 even if there was a perfect strawberry, by the time we got there we'd want something different. - [Narrator] Stewart and his team have been working on varieties with surprisingly new flavors in color. Imagine a pink or even a white strawberry. - The pink one's pretty white on the inside as is the white, but they've got some really interesting sort of tropical fruit pineapple kind of flavors. And they're, they're genuinely pretty sweet. (instrumental music)
• 44:00 - 44:30 - [Narrator] Rod Koda was taught to be a farmer by his late father-in-law. He grows berries on 26 acres some organically, on a hillside with a distant view of the Pacific ocean. - Farming is so enjoyable But just to be able to share the strawberries with other people. - [Narrator] In an environmentally conscious move to fight the bug wars, Koda has unleashed beneficial insects onto his crop to gobble up the mites that wanna eat his plants.
• 44:30 - 45:00 - This is like a battlefield, the good bugs against the bad bugs. - [Narrator] For years. Farmers like Coda used methyl bromide to kill fungi and bacteria and weeds living in the soil. But the EPA has banned the chemical because it was found to be damaging to the ozone layer. - Diseases like this macaharmina, prizariam that are, starting to become an issue because they unable to control those diseases now.
• 45:00 - 45:30 With the loss of methyl bromide that has become increasingly an issue in Southern California and it is starting to happen up here. - [Narrator] Strawberries annually make the environmental working groups dirty dozen list of fruits and vegetables that rank highest in pesticide residue. - In California, we have this most stringent pesticide regulations in the United States.
• 45:30 - 46:00 - [Narrator] California strawberry commission runs a test farm, searching for safer ways to protect plants. - Basically, strawberries are grown where people like to live. So there's a lot of houses near strawberry fields, and there's a need to increase the safety, perception of a need to increase the safety and address any possible concerns. - [Narrator] The climate in the Pajaro valley is ideal for raising fruit. It rarely gets above 70 degrees
• 46:00 - 46:30 and almost never drops below the mid forties. Water is the issue, Watsonville gets less than half the rainfall of a place like Plant City, Florida. - We don't get rain, so all the rain we have in this region comes from the ground, we capture that water during the winter when we have storms, that come in off the Pacific ocean and all that runoff,
• 46:30 - 47:00 we have to infiltrate into the ground to recharge our aquifers. - [Narrator] Irrigation is a necessity, but the ponds can't be located too close to the coast or drill too deep because an intrusion of salt water would kill the plants. - Each of the areas where we're growing vegetables and berries is like a big basin. It has sediments that have pores that hold the water and they sink deep wells
• 47:00 - 47:30 and they use large turbine pumps to pump that water up. A good well can produce between 500 gallons a minute, all the way up to 1500 gallons a minute, depending on the depth, how much water there is in that aquifer. - And the pump is about maybe 200 feet deep. And then they go straight to the fields and we water the strawberries for almost
• 47:30 - 48:00 45 minutes every day. (soft music) - [Narrator] Most of the California pickers are migrants.
• 48:00 - 48:30 Labor laws are posted at every farm in English and Spanish, but some of these workers can't read the rules. They're from Mexican villages so far from the mainstream, they speak only the indigenous languages of their native cultures. Nazario Mozqueda came to the United States from Mexico in 1995. He picked berries for 11 years and now supervises immigrant laborers. (speaks in foreign language)
• 48:30 - 49:00 - Yes, it's very difficult. (speaks in foreign language) - There's a lot of people that will try it but, it ends up being too much and they leave. (speaks in foreign language) - [Narrator] The son of Mexican pickers, Juan Montanez came to America at the age of 10. His parents sent him to college and told him he would not be a berry picker.
• 49:00 - 49:30 So we got his college degree but returned to the fields and now serves as a production and quality control leader. - Honest, hardworking as hardworking as you can ever meet anyone. They come here to work the majority of 'em and yeah, I just feel proud of them and being part of this. Because most people who go buy a box of berries, they don't see this. They just see a clamshell and they see berries,
• 49:30 - 50:00 but they don't really know where it comes from. (suspense sound) - [Narrator] Within a few hours after picking berries are loaded onto refrigerated trucks.
• 50:00 - 50:30 The trip from field to store may take three to four days. - Well, we ship strawberries by truck all over the United States by air, to various places in Europe and the Orient and so on. These trucks for the greatest part are very reliable and the drivers are very reliable. (soft music)
• 50:30 - 51:00 - Shipments remain chilled the entire way, right up to the time they're unloaded and placed in the produce section at your local supermarket.
• 51:00 - 51:30 - It takes about a day or two to get to our warehouse in Springfield. And then the next day we ship 'em out to the stores. We get loads three times a week. Right now we have one pounders and two pounders and occasionally when they're available, we have four pounders. We'll sell all these in two days. - Those that are selling groceries in they're produce departments. They really like to have strawberries there and they like to place them front and center. They know that they're a customer pleaser, they know that it will draw people in the store
• 51:30 - 52:00 and there have been studies showing that, people who have strawberries in their shopping cart tend to spend just a bit more money in the grocery store than they do if they don't have strawberries. (soft music)
• 52:00 - 52:30 - [Narrator] David Dickey gets to the Fayetteville Arkansas farmer's market early on Saturday mornings in May. - We can get these here sister. - okay. - Always say that the farmer's market is the hardest work I do all week. - [Narrator] It's a family business. So David's wife and daughters are part of the team. - People heard that there were strawberries. So they were, they were waiting for us. - You're the only guy with strawberries here. - I think the Berry size is very large and we probably have a record crop load.
• 52:30 - 53:00 - Start eating them now. - [Narrator] Vicky's berries are priced at $6, a quart higher than at the nearby grocery store. But his loyal customers are eager to pay extra for his locally grown fruit. - Oh my. (laughs) - Just the way I remembered last year's. - Putting out extra effort, putting out a little extra capital, to grow the best quality berries
• 53:00 - 53:30 and do things to enhance the flavor and the internal eating quality of the berry is because, I have to see and interact with my customers while others don't have to. And when they are giving me the price that I get on my berries, I have to have the best quality berries. Ma'am which box would you like? - Strawberry consumption in the United States is increasing every year at about a three to five percent rate.
• 53:30 - 54:00 - That's some beautiful berries - It's almost as if we cannot get enough strawberries, because consumers love strawberries. They're the combination of beauty, enjoyment, health and nutrition. (soft music) - There's an old saying,
• 54:00 - 54:30 doubtless God could have made a better berry, but Dallas God never did. As for where to find the best strawberries, climate, soil and varieties may change the flavor from sour and spice to syrupy sweet. But wherever they're grown, the best way to eat a strawberry is picked fresh from the vine Or as soon off the truck as you can get 'em.
• 54:30 - 55:00 For God has given a kindly empowerment to the favored strawberry flower. (soft music)
• 55:00 - 55:30 - Man.