When is Strawberry Picking Season 1 to 3 Days Method

• Introduction
• Varieties
• Harvesting Time
• Harvest Period
• 1 to 3 Days Method
• Weather
• Labor Requirements
• Ripe Strawberries
• Containers
• Post-harvest Storage
• Conclusion

When is Strawberry Picking Season: Introduction

Question is- when is strawberry picking season? Decades of innovation in global distribution and cold chain factors has changed the landscape of strawberries quite a lot. Strawberries are grown practically in every state and can be shipped across the country in trucks.

On the other hand, commercial farms focus on these attributes instead of the taste of the fruit: size, hardness, and disease and pest tolerance. As a rule, if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. Strawberries that are grown in greenhouses, or imported from California or Florida and transported to Illinois, do not stand a chance against naturally grown strawberries, and especially those from a farm such as Eckert's where they are freshly picked during the season. There is a noticeable tastable difference.

When is Strawberry Picking Season: Varieties

when is strawberry picking season? Well it depends on the variety of strawberries. Specifics Strawberries are among the top ten most favored fruits nationwide. Approximately 600 variants exist. Berries of different species differ in texture, size, and taste. Small berries are very flavorful, while large berries are more watery and taste bland. The optimal conditions for cultivating strawberries differ for each type.

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Due to that factor as well as the different areas from which these crops are harvested, the strawberry season is said to last for almost the entire year, that is, from January to November which is ideal for strawberry picking!

For the deep south regions, strawberry harvesting will normally fall within late April to May months. Across the midsection of the country, May and June are ideal at Eckert’s. For far north regions and Canada, the times will usually be during the last part of June. Most of Illinois as well as for most of the country, the growing season will be from April to June.

When is Strawberry Picking Season: Harvesting Time

How do you know when is strawberry picking season? Let's make that clear. There are only about three weeks of peak yield, so check these conditions regularly. If you are picking, contact your local farm. If you are shopping, observe closely what your preferred retailer has in stock. It is an approval but not a guarantee that these times are standard. These times vary every year and depend upon moisture content and temperatures.

While Picking, Be Careful and Watch the Shadings.

During the strawberry season the fruit should be evenly colored bright red, plump, unmarked or imperfect and a more shiny surface than usual. They should have good odor and be, firm to touch but not hard. If they are hard and white in part, they are not ready yet. If they are soft, they are overripe. They must not have any spots of molds and picked with the stem. The ideal ones are the ones with the stem attached halfway.

Once strawberries are picked, there is no further ripening process that takes place. Many foreign grown strawberries are harvested too early because they become mushy during their transport. Hence these berries tend to be hard and lack taste, when compared to the ones grown in Illinois at the Eckerts'.

During the Strawberry Picking Seasons, exercise a little caution.

Strawberries are tears and thus prone to bruising, therefore care must be exercised when picking berries.

When consumed, bruised berries become more susceptible to rot and have a shorter shelf life.

In addition, strawberries are among the fruits that have the highest levels of treatment with toxic substances and herbicides. Therefore, if you plan to acquire some strawberries, it would make sense to do so at a farm like Eckert’s that minimizes its use of agricultural chemicals.

When is Strawberry Picking Season: Harvest Period

When is strawberry picking season- to learn that, you have to learn about harvesting periods first. If everything goes right, an acre of June bearing strawberries should fetch around 8,000 to 12,000 pounds of harvest. Of course, what has been highlighted here is the perfect condition since the harvest can be impacted by many other factors including management practices and climatic conditions.

June bearing strawberries are only produced once during a year therefore, their harvest volume is lower than 80%. However, day neutral strawberries tend to have bulk harvest output as they do not have a specific flower bearing season.

Each day neutral strawberry plant can yield up to 0.75 to 1.25 pounds which translates to around 10,000 to 20,000 per acre. Day neutral strawberries are harvested starting from the early month of July all the way until the complete dropping of the temperature. Simply put, this promotes continuous farming and harvesting throughout the month of October.

However, such figures tend to drop late in the season since the weather tends to be cooler which directly affects the rate of berry growth. June bearing strawberries on the other hand have a 3 to 6 week period of being ready for harvest extending from mid-June to mid-July in the Minnesota State.

When is Strawberry Picking Season: 1 to 3 Days Method

Come mid June till mid July, that is when the June bearing strawberries are found in the Minnesota state. Strawberries in Minnesota are harvested every other day.

However, in certain situations when the temperature is extremely high or SWD attacks become frequent, harvests will then be carried out daily. At the same time, it has been found that noting down the harvest every 1 or every 2 days instead of 3 days harvested more marketable berries and decreased the amount of SWD as well- that is some good finding.

Fast harvesting has many more advantages rather than slowly allowing the berries to develop incurring fruit botrytis mold. Fertigation or applying fertilizers in granules will facilitate the farmer to achieve higher daily yields as the fruits will mature faster and the size of the berries will be bigger. This requires more picking times than the above Gherkin type picked fruits once a week or so.

When is Strawberry Picking Season: Weather

Severe weather conditions like heavy harvest seasonal rains can affect the schedule of the harvest as it may cause the scheduled picking time to be pushed further. There are those who still pick while it is raining while others would go back to the field when the rain has ceased.

When walking and kneeling on wet grounds, soil compaction will occur. Berries which are wet have greater chances of being moldy when kept in storage. However, in specific cases where there is excessive rain and there are heavy yields, it may on occasions be obligatory to pick under not ideal conditions.

When is Strawberry Picking Season: Labor Requirements

Strawberries grow in clusters on many plants and robust crops but are very delicate and require manual harvesting which is laborious.

While both systems have an equal need for employees, their use may actually reduce the number of persons employed in the field since more time may be spent in promoting the services on a U-pick basis However wider use of U-Pick business model may reduce the number of employees in the field as there are more working hours invloved in supervising the clients.

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Six to nine pickers are normally needed per self bearing strawberry drawn during June bearing each acre in an effort to reap all ripe fruit every 1 to 2 days.

During the harvests, workers assigned to harvest the fruits need to be properly briefed about the harvesting methods which involves picking surrounding plants from competent supervisors and grading during the harvests. When selling U-pick June-bearing strawberries, the most important consideration would be to establish a strawberry field that would cater to U-pick strawberries demand in the region.

One U-pick customer, on the other hand, will usually harvest 1to 3 flats (5 lbs. each) every hour depending on the number of berries available on the field, the large berries, and the speed of the customers. Time limitations for smaller berries since they are not picked that easy. There is not much data currently that is specific about Minnesota region about the number of pounds that most U-pick clients pick. Day neutral strawberries are often picked by the grower and his hired hands.

As per the records of UMN West Central Research and Outreach Center, it takes an annual average of 720 labor hours to harvest a day-neutral strawberry within an acre in size. This would then be around 51 hours a week when distributed over a 14 week span.

Because of this, it’s easier for most growers to have several workers assigned to an acre of day-neutral strawberies. Otherwise, begin with a small planting (say 1/4 to 1/2 acre), and gauge how long it would take you to harvest before expanding.

When is Strawberry Picking Season: Ripe Strawberries

There's a reason why these berries look all green, and it's because they have not entirely matured. You shouldn't pick any berries that show any signs of white color anywhere, even on the shoulders. The flavor and sugar levels are better when the berries are harvested, and the sugar content is fully ripe.

When is Strawberry Picking Season: Containers

Minnesota would be entirely based on handpicking strawberries. Strawberries should be harvested into clamshells, cardboard flats, or cardboard quart or pint containers. Cardboard flats or buckets are available for U-pick berry farms under the farm. U-pick services are common in Minnesota, but it is also usually sold in volumes, even though the berries are often sold in pounds after being picked.

The U-pick berry growers interviewed in Minnesota say that they prefer selling them by the pound, especially as some customers seem to have the ability to pile a lot more into a flat.

When is Strawberry Picking Season: Post-harvest Storage

Use quart or pint containers that are tightly sealed with plastic film tips or hard plastic domes like clamshells.

Containers that held 12 one-pint containers can be stored in a cardboard or fiberboard tray to avoid damages. It would be preferable to highlight the fruit and be kept in very attractive boxes, as customers are more inclined to pay extra for good packages of fruit. After harvest, do not put harvested berries really slow, but put them quickly into some cool and shady place such as a temporary field shed.

In the case where berries are going to be stored for a day, it is recommended to store them at a temperature ranging from 32° F to 35° F and at a relative humidity concentration of 90% to 95%. This is very important.

For growers who sell berries on a larger scale, they can use dry ice to increase the gas concentration level to about 10 to 40% so that these berries can be stored for much longer. In such a condition, berries are expected to be marketable for a period of 3 to 5 days during the processes of transportation, storage as well as marketing.

Conclusion

With at least a possibility that this will not be the best of seasons, we will do all we can to control the crop yields and then the traffic to the farm. We are interested just like everyone else in ensuring that the strawberry available for picking is as high as possible.

During a season like this one, and this is not the first, it is best for everyone concerned if we could stagger the visitors during summer. It may not help the situation if all the visitors come at once and harvest all the few strawberries, and then a field has to be closed for a week until some more strawberries become ripe.