The California strawberry industry has seen a longer period of peak production weeks than normal this season, with volumes to date running slightly higher than in 2016 when a record crop was harvested. 

"We’re certainly on track to be about where we were in 2016 at this point," California Strawberry Commission communications director Carolyn O’Donnell told Fresh Fruit Portal.

"When I look the production year to date our production this year is just slightly ahead, but we won’t know until the end of the year and part of that is dictated by when the rains arrive."

The latest figures show that 132 million trays have been shipped so far this season, compared to 129.1 million at the same time last year.

O’Donnell did point out however that in 2015 the figure at this point was 143 million trays, but that was a particularly early season due to lack of rain.

"We’ve been seeing some really good production," she said.

"We’ve got some newer varieties which are much more productive per acre than some of the older varieties."

"Since the end of April we’ve shipped more than six million trays per week, so we've had 14 weeks of over 6 million of fresh strawberries. Normally by this time of year we would have dropped down into the five or four millions."

O’Donnell said the 2017 campaign had been somewhat delayed due to the heavy rainfall in the state over the winter, but noted it was still within the normal range.

"It's just that our peak is continuing to be more weeks out," she said, adding peak volumes typically started to drop down from around the first week of July.

"We don’t know how much the rains would have played a role in it, but we definitely have varieties that are producing more fruit per acre."

She explained the California season essentially wrapped up once the rains arrived later in the year.

"Really when we start getting rain coming in we get people saying 'okay this isn’t worth it anymore' and people start to pull their plants for the season," she said.

"That’s when production starts to shift down to Southern California."

The U.S. market had seen good demand so far this season, she added, as per-capita consumption continued to rise.

O’Donnell also said the California industry continued to invest heavily in innovation and recently held a field day at the Strawberry Center at Cal Poly University.

"We were able to demonstrate a number of projects related to identifying different varieties that may be resistant to diseases in the soil, and we also have a lot of students working on engineering solutions and automation solutions for strawberry farmers," she said.

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