Chilling Delay

Southern California strawberry farmers make their money daring the weather. For the second year in a row, the weather is winning.

Chilly temperatures since Christmas have delayed the start of full harvesting in local strawberry fields. By some accounts, things won’t get rolling until Valentine’s Day.

That’s much closer to the traditional opening of strawberry season than local farmers would like. Classically, the first fruit of spring in most of the world, a combination of warm temperatures and selective breeding have pushed back the beginning of strawberry picking in Southern California to the point that it sometimes starts at Christmas.

In the produce business, getting there first pays big dividends. While strawberry prices will drop to $8 a flat at wholesale in the prime of the year, early strawberries fetch a premium. At the Los Angeles Terminal Market this week, strawberries traded for $15 to $20 a flat. That early bonus is important because the Southern California harvest is shorter than elsewhere, deteriorating once the weather warms up.

If there’s a silver lining in this chilly harvest, it’s that it’s not as bad as last year. While cold delays maturity, it’s the kind of rain that we got last year that has the potential to do really serious damage.

“The cold’s not that bad,” says George Yamamoto of Oxnard’s Hueneme Berry Farm. “And the rain hasn’t been bad at all. So far we’ve had about 4 inches total. Last year at this point, we had about 18.”

“We’re slow this year, but the plants look OK,” says Bill Ito of Irvine’s B&E; Farms. “As soon as it warms up, we’ll start cranking. We’d like to see temperatures in the 70s during the day and the high 50s at night. Until then, it’s one of those things where we just have to sit and wait.”