How is strawberry season shaping up?

CTV’s Karis Mapp explains why strawberry fans may have to dig deep this year and why farmers are watching out for a fungal threat.

Summer is here and some strawberry lovers are eager to head out into the field and get their pick of the juiciest berries.

But this year, strawberry enthusiasts may have to work a little harder to find the delectable delight.

Last week the team at Brantwood Farms in Brantford warned pickers that the crop was less than overwhelming.

“We were really keen on how many strawberries we thought we had, but when we went to pick them, we realized we didn’t have as many as we thought we had,” Andrew Pate from Brantwood Farms said.

In a social media post on June 20, Brantwood Farms wrote, “Strawberry picking is VERY light. We have not had the heat needed for the strawberries to ripen.”

However, their luck changed as a heatwave hit the area.

“Everything started to come on all at the same time, and now we can’t pick them fast enough,” Pate told CTV News on Friday.

“We still have lots of strawberries out there. It does just take you a little bit longer to find them than some years we have in the past. But, we haven’t had too many people not able to fill their baskets yet.”

Some eager fans were out in the field searching for the best berries.

“You really have to dig deep,” strawberry picker Meghan Hill advised. “You really have to look under the leaves and pick it from the bottom.”

“They’re a bit on the small side,” fellow picker Justin Hale said. “We have noticed that.”

But Justin said it was all part of the fun.

“It’s like a treasure hunt. Right?” he said.

Keeping an eye on a fungal threat

The weather is not the only factor farmers are closely watching.

A fungal disease, Neopestalotiopsis, is threatening some strawberry crops across the country.

“The plants gradually start to wilt and they eventually die,” Youbin Zheng, professor at the University of Guelph, said. “That’s going to reduce your yields, and you may not have any harvest.”

There is no known cure for the disease, and it can spread quickly from plant to plant. A fungicide can keep it at bay, but it can’t eliminate it completely.

“If you have rain underneath the infected [plants] you can splash to another plant,” Zheng said.

Neopestalotiopsis was first reported in Florida in 2017. Since then, it has been found in Mexico and Canada. The first recorded Canadian case was in Ontario in 2020.

“We are aware of it. We haven’t found it in our field yet,” Pate said. “We are scouting for it. We are worried about it. Haven’t found it yet, which is a good thing.”

With files from Daniel Otis and Karis Mapp.