Strawberry Fields Flooded: Late last week, Southern...

Strawberry Fields Flooded: Late last week, Southern California strawberry harvesters were valiantly picking in spite of the rain. It’s an occupational hazard they expect each year, as the region’s most profitable season coincides with its wettest.

But on Monday, very few were still harvesting, said Teresa Thorne, a spokeswoman for the California Strawberry Advisory Board, based in Watsonville on Monterey Bay near San Jose. Instead, growers were digging ditches at the ends of furrows to drain off standing water, discarding rain-damaged berries and pulling off too-wet blossoms, which tend to produce deformed fruit.

“They’re losing one heck of a lot of production,” Thorne said.

This is normally the best part of the season for Southern California strawberry growers because the northern part of the state has not begun production yet and growers in the south can name their price, to some extent.

Orange County, which sold $44 million in strawberries in 1991, began harvesting in late December, while Northern California won’t begin until the middle of March.