Strawberry Varieties
Allstar (not available in 2006+)
Earliglow (not available in 2006+)
Darselect (not available in 2007+)
Mira (not available in 2006+)
Mesabi (not available in 2006+)
Wendy (new for 2011)
Galletta (new for 2011)
Allstar
After having grown Allstar for over 15 years, 2005 will be our second year without this very dependable variety. Allstar was an exceptionally vigorous variety that never seemed to be plagued with the root rot problems of flashier varieties like Jewel or Honeoye.
While Allstar is a very productive variety with excellent root rot disease resistance, it does have a lighter colored, mild favored fruit that is very unattractive when thawed after freezing. Even though my U-Pick customers did not usually come to our farm with the intent to freeze strawberries, they would inevitably pick more fruit than they could consume in a few days and end up trying to freeze the remainder and ended up dissatisfied when the berries were thawed. This forced us to always have two fields ( and the required field supervisors) available for picking and ask each customer the "freezing" question before assigning them a row to pick -- this greatly complicated our operation and forced redundant staffing. I did notice however during the final week of the Allstar season when temperatures were higher that the flavor and color of the Allstar was quite acceptable so there is a chance that this berry might work for someone in a more southern climate.
Earliglow
Old, flavor conscious Strawberry customers will undoubtedly miss Earliglow again in 2005. We have had to eliminate this planting because of age and low productivity. Cabot should be a good replacement.
Cabot
Cabot is an exceptionally large strawberry (like the California berries in your local grocery store), except that they are good tasting. The appearance of Cabot is generally very attractive except for the very first berries which tend to be slightly irregular in shape. Its major downside is its relative lateness -- roughly 10 days after Earliglo. This berry was developed by the Canadians in Kent, Nova Scotia. The berry is definitely softer than the rock hard California berries that you buy in the store and probably will not keep as long in the refrigerator after you pick them. It produced a few berries in the fall of 2002 that I sampled -- the favor was not as good as Earliglo but still pretty good.
May 30, 2003: I have been eating a few Cabot with cereal these last few days and came to the same conclusion about flavor: pretty good but not as good as Earliglo. They sure make an impressive strawberry pie !
This was our best tasting strawberry strawberry during the rainy 2004 season and customer acceptance continued to be excellent for 2005. Experience of Farmer Carl's wife and a few other customers indicate that Cabot is probably not our best variety for making jam unless you are looking for a "jelly" type jam. Most of the berry will dissolve in the jam (there will be very few chunks of berries) and the color will be a lighter red than I would like to see. Jam flavor is still good, however.
From 2006 thru 2010 Cabot performed quite well for us and customer acceptance was excellent, however, the incidence of Anthracnose Crown Rot seems to increase each year. Anthracnose Crown Rot is normally a serious problem of strawberries in only mild climate areas like Florida, California, and the coastal areas of the southeastern US but can apparently be a problem in more northern states during excessive warm, rainy weather. Anthracnose is typically introduced into a planting by infected nursery stock. We experienced a serious episode of Anthracnose in the mid 1980's after purchasing plants from an Arkansas nursery -- the variety was Scott which is known to be particularly susceptible. Up-to-now the conventional wisdom was that purchasing plants from a "northern" nursery would eliminate this problem but since our plant source is Michigan, this is obviously no guarantee! Once a plant is infected, there is little chemical control can do other than perhaps limit the spread to non infected plants. Normally, when a mother plant is infected (wilt symptoms) the fungus appears to be transmitted to even rooted daughter plants which eventually wilt and die. While fumigation will eliminate the fungus in the soil, growers in transition climates (along the old Mason Dixon line) should only grow Cabot if they have a source of plants that are known to be free of the Anthracnose fungus and willing to spray frequently during episodes of warm, rainy weather. While probably not essential, drip irrigation would be helpful in limiting spread of this devastating disease. The life of a Cabot planting in transition areas like St. Louis is at best two fruiting seasons--we had to plow up a block of Cabot after only one fruiting year in 2010.
Darselect
Darselect is a standard variety grown in France and Italy that has holds good size . This is a berry for people who like to pick large berries with a good flavor in a very short length of time! This is a much softer berry than the "rock hard" strawberries available in the supermarket from California so you will need to handle it carefully to avoid bruising.
In 2004 and 2005, those customers preferring a tart (acidic) strawberry like Mesabi (below) however, were disappointed with the flavor of Darselect and thought that it seemed "flavorless". With two years commercial experience with Darselect in Missouri it is obvious to me that even under excellent weather conditions like 2005, the flavor of Darselect is similar to Allstar and leaves something to be desired . Darselect, however, is an extremely productive and high yielding variety that is reasonably easy to pick and generally well accepted by my customers who are "used to" store purchased California berries. Darselect is extremely susceptible to leaf spot and cyclamen mite-- so it must be sprayed more frequently than I would prefer--particularly in mid summer after the harvest season is over.
Mira
Mira is another Canadian strawberry variety that seems well adapted to the Midwest. Very attractive, glossy, and firm berries that are good flavored and hold their size well throughout the season. Mira is "the berry" for those who prefer a berry tart in flavor like our an old favorite, Redchief. Although Mira is a fine tasting berry, I was a little disappointed with its size in 2004. In 2005, the size of Mira was even more disappointing and once again I judged the flavor no better than Darselect. This variety was plowed up in June 2005 and will not be replanted.
This variety is reported to be very susceptible to black root rot in wet, clay soils (like our farm) so it was planted on raised beds in fumigated soil. As you may recall from 2002, we lost the entire (1 acre) first year crop of Jewel to black root rot.
Mesabi
Mesabi ripens about the same time as Allstar but much better color and freezing quality. Developed by the Univ. Minnesota for more northern climates so it does not hold up as well in a hot and rainy St. Louis summer. It does have a tendency to sunburn easily like Earliglo under the right conditions like several days of cool cloudy weather followed by intense mid day sunlight with calm winds. The plants tend to be small which makes picking the fruit a little easier.
For 2004, however, Mesabi was the very latest strawberry to fruit and seemed to hold up very poorly under the extremely wet conditions we had late in May. It was a very pretty berry with good flavor and good size but not holding up well in rainy weather is a serious problem. Most of this variety was plowed up but we did keep three rows in 2005 just to be sure that 2004 was not a fluke year. Mesabi performance and flavor in 2005 was much better but not enough to warrant planting this variety again.
Wendy
AC Wendy is a very early strawberry was developed by the Ag Canada Kentville Research Station in Nova Scotia (the same Research Station that produced Cabot).
We planted about 1/2 acre for trial in 2011.
Galletta
Galletta is a very early strawberry was developed by Jim Ballington at North Carolina State University.
We planted about 1/2 acre for trial in 2011.