Prairie strawberries taste great in the summer, but have a hard time making it through the cold winters.
But a group of growers hopes to find some new varieties to tough out the cold with $120,000 in research over the next three years.
Waldo Thiessen explained part of the money will go toward evaluating strawberry cultivars coming out of a breeding program in Kemptville, N.S.
The plants will be tested at Agriculture Canada’s Morden Research Centre to see if they’ll work here.
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The past few winters have been particularly unkind to prairie berries. On his operation near Altona, Man., Thiessen lost about 60 percent of his plants last year.
The ones that survived were mainly from old, winter-hardy varieties that aren’t as tasty as some of the more modern types, he said.
Winterkill is devastating to growers’ rotations. After two years of summerfallow, and one year to get plants established, farmers hope for three harvests from plants.
Thiessen, president of the Prairie Fruit Growers Association, said researchers will also see if it makes sense for farmers to produce their own stock at home.
Growers buy the daughter plants from strawberry plants in Ontario, Nova Scotia and California and transplant them here.
“We’re wondering, with our shorter summers, whether we can produce enough plants to make it economical,” Thiessen said.
Benefits industry
The research is a big boost for the association, which celebrates its 25th anniversary next year, said Thiessen.
Like most fruit growers, he relies on a variety of crops on his farm: canola, wheat and black beans aside from nine acres of strawberries, seven of watermelon, and one each of raspberry and cantaloup.
And like other growers, he’s been noticing a decline in the popularity of U-pick operations.
Fewer people have the time or inclination to pick berries, and fewer follow traditions of making jams and jellies.
To counter that trend, Thiessen has installed a walk-in cooler on his farm and has started picking his own crops.
“We’ve had very little resistance to the extra price that we charge for the picking, and it also gives employment to students,” he said.
Part of the research money will go toward studying markets and processing technology for all berries.
“We’ve been doing farmers’ markets and supplying some local retail outlets, but is there a possibility of going into chains like Safeway or Superstore?” Thiessen said.
Prairie growers do have one advantage over those in more friendly climates: they don’t have to use as much fungicide or insecticide. Some are organic.
“We’ve had Agriculture Canada monitor all our operations, and they’ve never found any traces of chemical or anything that causes them concern,” he said.
“I’m not sure how to market that, but I think that’s something that we need to look at, and let them know we’ve got a very safe, high quality product.”
Growers are putting up $15,000 of their own money for the research, while $30,000 came from the Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council. This is the first award from the council, formed in the last few years to help the province adapt to the loss of rail transportation subsidies.
The balance of the $120,000 will come in grants and services from Manitoba Agriculture and Agriculture Canada.
