New strawberry varieties aim to help Watsonville growers

WATSONVILLE, Calif. (KION-TV) — Strawberry growers in Watsonville are getting their first taste of two new berry varieties developed to resist soil disease and improve crop quality.

These new options aim to give farmers more choice in how they manage their fields.

California Berry Cultivars is introducing two new varieties, Carpinteria, which offers high yields, and Artesia, which is designed specifically for organic growers. Both come with strong resistance to soil borne diseases.

“It’s going to help the growers that it has a good disease resistance profile, and it should grow in this area without too much difficulty and help the growers with increased production,” said Don Yoshimura, research farm manager for Watsonville.

With the success of the Alturas variety already seen in local fields, these new options are giving farmers even more flexibility to choose what fits their needs best.

“Artesia is one that is good for the organic market, and that one is a very unique variety. It may not be the highest yielding one, but its disease resistance is the best that we've ever seen,” said Don Yoshimura.

These improvements also help farmers manage rising labor costs, with varieties that produce larger berries and make harvesting more efficient.

“With the rising costs, we have great average size on these varieties. So that helps the growers because it makes the picking efficiency better, so the harvesters can pick faster,” said Don Yoshimura.

One of the biggest challenges local growers face is Fusarium, a soil disease that has severely impacted strawberry yields in recent years.

“The Fusarium has taken a large foothold in this area for the strawberry growers. Some of the varieties out there now are suffering quite a bit from that. And the loss of production is very devastating for the grower. So this will help them quite a bit in that respect,” said Don Yoshimura.

For organic farmers, who can’t rely on chemical fumigation to treat soil, disease-resistant plants like Artesia could be especially beneficial.

“Organic growers do not use any kind of fumigate to clean the field up beforehand. So this will aid them greatly if the field has any kind of Fusarium or other types of fungal pathogens,” said Don Yoshimura.

Both Carpinteria and Artesia will be available for planting this fall.