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Time Is Ripe For Berries

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By JAN HOLLINGSWORTH

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 3, 2008

Summer is a time of rest in the world's winter strawberry capital.

Most of the fields in eastern Hillsborough County have been fallow since late spring, when the sheets of black plastic were pulled up and burned, the neat rows flattened, the commercial berry gardens gone to weed.

Some of the land, however, has continued to feed a powerful appetite for locally grown fruits and vegetables. Squash, zucchini, peppers, onions, cantaloupe and tomatoes sprouted for a time among the rows of fading berries. Then came sorghum and other cover crops - planted, then plowed under to replenish the earth.

A few fanciful farmers each year fill their fields with grand sunflowers that nod in the breeze at transfixed passers-by. The berry respite doesn't last long, though. Neither do the fields of sunny blossoms that must make way for the top crop. These, too, eventually find their way back into the ground.

Come Labor Day, the cycle begins again, witnessed by those who frequent the area's byways.

For months the fields have baked in the sun, flat and gray with no hint of what they are about to become - thousands of acres of vibrant green bushes bursting with ruby red berries.

Some acres have been planted with a variety of early berries - not as sweet or succulent as the Treasures and Festivals that will follow in the coming months, yet firm and more conducive to shipping to faraway markets.

In the fields that will grow the later varieties that find their way to local grocery stores and produce markets, the tractors are busy turning the earth that soon will be fumigated and covered in new layers of visqueen, the polyethylene sheeting that has revolutionized Florida strawberry production in recent decades.

The plastic is a constant in all the berry fields, sealing soil freshly sterilized of noxious spores and seeds. For the next eight months, the growers will do battle with the fungus and weeds that threaten their livelihood.

Most, like Carl Grooms, will be trying once again to find a suitable substitute for methyl bromide, the magic bullet that has allowed berries to thrive in Florida's warm, moist and sometimes inhospitable climate.

Methyl bromide, the growers' weapon of choice, is being phased out by an international treaty. It is said to be a threat to the ozone layer that shields the ground from harmful radiation.

Grooms is testing several alternatives on his 200 acres of berries this year.

In some of his fields, he will use a double layer of plastic and fumigate the soil beneath it with a chemical called Vapam.

"It's an old product. It's been around for 50 or 60 years," he said.

Grooms also plans to test Paladin, another promising fumigant that is in the experimental stage.

Some growers have had success with a chemical called Telon that is injected through the plastic to stave off the troublesome weeds, fungus and nematodes.

"I haven't seen any equal to methyl bromide yet," Grooms said. "We might have to compromise and just take what we can get."

Allen Williford, president of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association, is one of the few local berry producers who doesn't have to concern himself with finding a chemical alternative to methyl bromide.

Williford raises organic berries.

"Obviously, I can't use any of them," he said. "What I've chosen to do is not grow in the soil. I grow in organic soil-less media."

Williford's 15 acres of organic berries are a specialty product that costs twice as much per acre to produce as berries grown at conventional farms.

"At present, it hasn't been profitable for us, but we're blazing a new trail and trying to make this happen and bring costs down," he said.

With farm acreage shrinking and populations growing, conventional production systems will remain the foundation of global food sources, Williford said.

"The world is going to have to be fed by conventional farming methods unless everybody in suburbia starts growing their own food like our ancestors did."

That means berry farmers will have to find a substitute for methyl bromide - and soon.

So far the most effective soil fumigant - and the most controversial - appears to be methyl iodide, which was approved last year by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency despite the protests of dozens of scientists.

In a letter sent last fall to EPA administrator Stephen Johnson, 54 scientists - including five Nobel laureates in chemistry - warned that the toxic fumigant poses a threat to fetuses, children, the elderly and others who might come in contact with it in local farm fields.

Methyl iodide, developed specifically to replace methyl bromide, is designed mainly for use by berry growers in Florida and California.

The federal agency has required workers who apply it to the fields to wear extra protective clothing. The new rules apply to methyl bromide, as well, in areas where it is still being used.

Grooms frets about the public perception when people driving past berry fields see farm workers in masks and moon suits.

"It is hard for growers to understand that somebody who's been involved with a chemical for 40 years needs to be more cautious," he said.

Addressing public perception will be one of the challenges faced by Ted Campbell, the newly hired executive director of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association.

Campbell, who has operated a plant nursery and also worked for years procuring produce for a grocery chain, was chosen unanimously by the association's board last month after a nationwide search.

He's new to the berry business, but his experience in the production and retail end of agriculture will be invaluable, said Grooms, who is on the association's executive committee.

Educating the consumer and the grocery store buyers is a key goal of the berry growers.

"We actually talked about that at the board meeting when we hired him," Grooms said. "We've got to get the communication to the grocery chains as to what farmers need to grow and harvest a good crop.

"And we need to educate the folks who buy our produce about what we do for them in terms of food safety and the regulations we abide by."

That will go a long way toward instilling consumer confidence in American-grown produce versus the cut-rate imports preferred by some grocery chains.

"There's a lot of things we do that the consumer doesn't know about," Grooms said. "Things that make a difference - cooling them after they're picked, getting them to market quickly. We use best management practices at the farm - in our pesticides, watering, food safety."

American farmers are conscientious about what they do, Williford said.

"The conventional farms that we have now are the safest they have ever been, and they get safer and safer," he said.

Getting the word out to retail produce procurers and grocery shoppers will be one of the challenges Campbell faces in the coming year.

For now, he is learning the names, the faces and the issues of the Florida strawberry world.

"I'm trying to give myself a clear understanding of what's happening and what needs to be done," Campbell said.

Meantime, the growers have their work cut out for them.

The cost of producing an acre of berries will increase dramatically this year, Williford said.

"Everything we touch and use in our industry in some form or another has petroleum involved. And fertilizer has doubled and tripled in price," he said.

Grooms is undaunted as he prepares to tackle another long and uncertain season of watching the skies and the mercury - of hot days on the tractor and freezing nights in the fields, coaxing blooms and berries from the rich Plant City soil.

"Bring it on! Bring it on!" he crowed. "It's just another day."

Reporter Jan Hollingsworth can be reached at (813)865-4436 or jhollingsworth@tampatrib.com.

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