Southern California growers soon may have access to some new strawberry varieties.
Currently, fronteras is the region’s leading university-bred strawberry with 1,724 acres of fall-planted berries in the Oxnard, Orange County, San Diego, Coachella Valley growing area, according to the Watsonville-based California Strawberry Commission.
San andreas follows with 646 acres, then comes petaluma with 107 acres.
Proprietary strawberries account for 3,212 fall-planted acres in the region.
But new offerings are in the works from the University of California, Davis, and from Oxnard-based California Berry Cultivars LLC.
CBC is trialing several cultivars that will meet the needs of Southern California growers, said Kyle VandenLangenberg, director of research and development.
“In the south, we’ve predominantly been focusing on early-yielding, short-day varieties that have good flavor and good disease resistance,” he said.
Some of those should be released in the fall for the 2021-22 season.
“They’re substantially earlier than any other product on the market now,” he said.
CBC also has been working on an alternative to portola, the region’s — and the state’s — leading summer-planted variety, which he said has been panned for its lack of flavor but has good yields.
“We’ve been working hard over the past several years to find a variety that may be a natural replacement for portola that has a similar marketable total yield but has better flavor,” he said.
CBC is evaluating two products that may well fit the bill, VandenLangenberg said.
A couple of new varieties already have been released by UC Davis, said Isaac Rainwater, strawberry licensing field representative.
UCD Victor, a short-day variety, is similar in yields to fronteras, but it has better post-harvest characteristics, he said.
“It has firmer fruit, brix is a little higher, and the plants are a little more compact.”
It comes on a week or two behind fronteras, but yields slightly higher than fronteras across the season.
UCD Warrior, another short-day variety, is similar in timing to fronteras but not as productive, Rainwater said.
“Warrior is probably the most disease-tolerant variety that has ever been released in the UC Davis program,” he said.
UCD Warrior is resistant to fusarium wilt and moderately resistant to macrophomina phaseolina and phytophthora cactorum, he said.
“In growing regions where they’re seeing these diseases come up, UCD Warrior would be a great variety to try,” Rainwater said.
Grower-shippers say they’re always on the lookout for new varieties.
Watsonville-based Well-Pict Inc. has marketed its own proprietary strawberries for 25 years or more, said Jim Grabowski, merchandising manager.
“We’re trying to find the berry that meets all the qualifications in terms of flavor profile, good looks, yields and color,” he said.
“We thought that we would be better off having our own variety to distinguish ourselves from the rest of the field.”
Developing one’s own cultivars is an expensive proposition, but in the long run, it has paid off for Well-Pict, he said.
Watsonville-based California Giant Berry Farms grows several university varieties, including san andreas, fronteras, cabrillo, monterey and portola, said Kyla Oberman, director of marketing.
All those berries have great flavor and are large, firm and heart shaped, she said.
“These are primarily day-neutral and short-day varieties that are ideal for the winter harvest,” Oberman said.
Oxnard-based Bobalu Berries is pleased with the university varieties and has planted a lot of fronteras and some san andreas berries, said Cindy Jewell, who handles the company’s marketing.
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Bobalu Berries is evaluating a number of other varieties in test plots in the Santa Maria growing area, she added.
Oxnard-based Success Valley Produce LLC continuously tests new varieties and has dedicated acreage to new, unnumbered varieties coming out of the University of California system, said Backus Nahas, director of marketing.
Currently, the company grows fronteras, monterey and san andreas strawberries in Southern California.
