The Road to the Strawberry Field By Sarah Holt
The road to the strawberry field can be a winding one. Especially when you aren’t sure which field to go to. Luckily, we easily navigated around the fields, and around some more, before we finally found the one we were looking for.
irrigation. Fumigant is also added to the soil during this process. The tractor laying the plastic has workers riding on the back, ensuring the plastic is going down as it should and alerting the tractor driver to any problems that may arise.
Karen Berry, publisher of In The Field, was behind the wheel and Amber Jurgensen, managing editor of the Plant City Times & Observer, and I were passengers. It was time for us to learn what it takes to get the ground ready for planting strawberries.
Fancy Farms uses TIF or Totally Impermeable Film to cover the beds. This plastic mulch is used to hold fumigants in the soil at the doses needed to control pests and to prevent the loss of fumigant. Black plastic is used to hold in the heat. How much plastic you ask? For Fancy Farm’s 230 acres of strawberries, Grooms ordered 450 rolls of plastic, each one holding 2,425 feet. You do the math.
Who better to help us understand the process of taking an empty field, with a cover crop, to the raised, plastic covered beds ready for the delicate new strawberry plants, than Carl Grooms, proprietor of Fancy Farms in Springhead. Once we found the correct field, Carl welcomed us with open arms, and jokes of course. This 15 acre field we were to learn on is just one of many that make up Fancy Farms, 120 acres owned and another 110 leased, to grow the delectable delight. The preparation of the fields begins well before the strawberry plants arrive. Once the field is bare, meaning any cover crop that may have been planted is gone, the field is “fluffed,” bringing moisture to the top, and then it is flattened with a roller. Once the fields are flattened, it is time to make the raised beds. A tractor with satellite is used to make the rows as straight as possible. The equipment being pulled behind this tractor makes the initial raised “bed.” At the end of the row the driver takes over, turns the tractor and prepares it for the next trip down the field, once turned and positioned, the satellite takes over again. If the beds happen to crumble or have low spots, workers fill in these spots using a shovel. In all, at Fancy Farms, there are three tractors navigating the fields. The second one tightens up the bed, and the third one lays the plastic and tape for 32
INTHEFIELD MAGAZINE
October 2015
But we aren’t done. The rows need to be even on the ends and this is done by good old manual labor. A worker with a shovel clears out the end of the row so they are all nice and uniform. Once the preparation is done there is a 21 day wait until the berries, which for Fancy Farms this year are the Radiance and Sweet Sensation varieties, can be planted. Fancy Farms uses both domestic and H-2A workers. Grooms hired about 50 workers to help with the beds and plastic; another 50 will come in to help plant with 50 more for picking season. The H-2A program allows U.S. employers or U.S. agents who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs. These workers have their specific tasks as assigned and were scattered throughout the field doing a variety of jobs. So you see, it’s not as easy and rolling out some plastic and sticking plants in the ground. A lot of work goes in to preparing the fields before the baby strawberry plants arrive.
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