Weather patterns leave berry season uncertain The key this year? Location, location, location

SANGERVILLE – Maine’s strawberry growers have weathered a record-breaking wet fall, a mostly snowless winter and deluges this spring.

The result may be far fewer berries this season.

At Stutzman’s Farm, the assessment of this season’s strawberries depends on which field is scrutinized. One acre-and-a-half field, covered with plastic sheeting all winter, already has produced green berries and is thriving.

“We are going to be two to two and a half weeks ahead of schedule on that field,” Rainie Stutzman said Monday.

But staying ahead has costs: the Stutzmans have repeatedly been up all night irrigating to prevent frost from killing the berries.

Now turn your head and look at a neighboring field covered with traditional straw and you find a completely different story. “It’s not doing as well. We experienced a lot of winter kill,” Stutzman said.

The lack of snow cover this winter has taken a toll on Maine’s summer strawberry crop, but the level of damage has a lot to do with location.

Jodie Booth of The Strawberry Ranch in Palmyra – who put in 3,000 new strawberry plants last year – said Monday that she was completely unaffected by winter kill.

“We have blossoms already, and the season looks like it will be a bit early,” Booth said. Booth replaced winter snow cover with a heavy layer of straw, insulating the plants and their sensitive root systems.

In southern Maine, Bill Spiller of Spiller Farm in Wells watched earlier this month as days of record rainfall flooded his fields.

“It’s really, really wet out there, but so far the berries are all right,” Spiller said Monday. “The problem with so much water is it promotes disease. We won’t know if we’re affected for a couple more weeks.”

“Strawberries are not particularly hardy,” David Handley, a small-fruit-and-vegetable expert with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, said Monday. “The plants succeed in Maine because we normally have a good snow cover.

“Due to the lack of snow this winter, we are seeing winter injury across the state, ranging from very light to heavy. As a result, I expect this year’s crop of berries to be lighter than usual.”

Handley advised customers to watch their local strawberry farms closely, and as soon as the berries are ripe to get out into the fields.

Strawberries are traditionally ripe during the third and fourth weeks of June, but due to new, late-maturing varieties of berries and plastic row covers, the season can be greatly extended, Handley said.