To: North American Fruit Explorers <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] Strawberries: variety report
Date: Sat, 12 Jul 2003 18:38:47 -0400
Strawberry report from Road's End Farm:
Unfortuantely I can't report on Maxim, as I'd promised, because the deer
got into the field and ate them all before they were ripe, along with a
lot of the leaves. (They were in an edge row.) So about Maxim I can say
only that the plants looked OK, the green fruit looked promising, and
the deer apparently liked them fine.
On other varieties I had in this year: my standbys, Earliglow, Jewel,
and Sparkle, all did well. Production was highest on Jewel, and in my
opinion flavor best on Sparkle, neither of which is surprising. Flavor
was also good in Earliglow and in Jewel. Jewel is by far the best
flavored of the larger berries that I've tried here, and is acceptable
to Sparkle customers when I run out of Sparkle. (It's not as large as
the monstrosities sometimes seen in stores, but an occasional berry this
year was pretty astonishing in size, and most of the Jewel were big by
my standards.) Earliglow flavor is to my taste inbetween, even better
than Jewel but not quite up to Sparkle. As expected Earliglow was the
first to start ripening, Sparkle the last, and size dropped off fairly
fast on both Earliglow and Sparkle, more slowly on Jewel.
I was also trialing Cavendish and Sable. Sable started with Earliglow,
size dropped off almost as soon and even more dramatically than it does
with Earliglow, and flavor was bland throughout. I won't grow this
again. Cavendish came on with Jewel; berries were huge and it was very
productive, but I thought it was very bland also. I did have some
customers who said they liked it, and one who came back the next week
and asked for it by name; but I don't know what else she had been eating
to compare it to. It was better than a usual supermarket variety, being
fairly juicy and (once the sun came out) somewhat sweet. I'll crop the
same planting again next year and will leave the Cavendish in (there's
not very much of it) to see what happens; but doubt I'll continue with
it, despite the temptation of the fast picking. Will see what the
customers have to say, though.
Flavor in strawberries can depend a lot on where they are grown, exact
locality and soil as well as general climate; your mileage may vary.
Honeoye tastes bland grown here, from what I hear it does produce good
flavor in some locations. There does also seem to be a good bit of
variation in individual tastes.
These were all grown under organic management in the Finger Lakes region
of New York State, usually zone 5, in a moderately heavy (by upstate NY
standards) clayey loam soil (Ovid), with straw mulch. Last year while
the plants were developing we were much of the time in severe drought;
they got some drip irrigation but as my pond had run out and the well
was threatening to they didn't get as much as I would have liked. We did
get rain last fall before freezeup, followed by what I used to think of
as a normal winter, with some below zero temperatures and snow cover
most of the winter, though not a huge amount of total snow accumulation
over the season as a whole. The spring was mostly cool and cloudy, with
a lot of rainy days but only moderate amounts of actual rain; it then
suddenly turned hot (80's - 90's F) and dry during harvest season.
Harvest started off slow, then everything came on with a bang once it
warmed up, and ended fairly abruptly. The first harvest was a handful of
berries June 11 from Earliglow and Sable; yesterday (July 11th) there
were still a few usable berries in the field, but not many. Heaviest
production overall was the week of July 4th, though Earliglow had
dropped off by then and was producing most heavily around June 26.
-- Rivka
Re: [NAFEX] Strawberries: variety report,
road's end farm, 07/12/2003