Jump-Start your Strawberries

While there were overall benefits from our wet winter and spring, the downside has been felt by coastal strawberry growers.  Following the wettest period in a generation or more, usually productive fields have struggled to produce many berries so far this year. It has been too cold and too wet to get anything close to normal yields.

I’m working with my growers in Monterey County to incorporate H-85™ Flowable on their strawberry fields, which provides many benefits, including plant stimulation, overall soil health, and nitrogen efficiency. Moisture is better held inside the root zone, helping the symbiotic relationship of the microbes and roots.  At a quart per acre once a week, H-85 provides a key carbon element in the soil, boosting nitrogen metabolism just in time for the key second berry pick for the summer.

We are probably out of our rainy period, and there’s time for berry farms to rebound. The Monterey crop has been several weeks behind a normal pace, and growers hope they can return to normal fruit production, while still finding a window without a lot of competition from Santa Maria and Oxnard.

Hopefully for summer picnic season and the Fourth of July, there’s a much steadier strawberry supply from Monterey County that will be enjoyed by consumers far and wide.