What is in this article?:
- Strawberries potential alternative crop for northern New Mexico?
- High pH soil
- Could strawberries become a cash crop for northern new Mexico growers?
Late freezes in Northern New Mexico impacts the fruit tree crops regularly. In 2011, the state's peach crop was lost to a late freeze. Growers are determining what impact the hard mid-April frost will have on this year's crop.
To provide research-based recommendations to fruit growers, New Mexico State University continues to test potential alternate fruit crops for northern New Mexico.
Shengrui Yao, Cooperative Extension Service fruit specialist and researcher stationed at NMSU's Sustainable Agriculture Science Center at Alcalde, is studying strawberries to see if this popular sweet red fruit could be a cash crop for the growers.
"Originally, I thought strawberries would be a wonderful crop because most of the time, late frosts won't kill all of the flowers or buds in a cluster, so growers would always have some form of a crop," Yao said.
Yao decided to conduct variety trails to see if strawberries could survive the late freeze issue and to determine which variety would adapt to the high pH soil and produce the best yield for the northern New Mexico region. With support from USDA Specialty Crop Block Grant and the Agricultural Development and Promotion Fund from the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, she began the study in 2011.
"One reason we do a study over several years is to evaluate the crop in the different weather conditions that may occur," she said. "While our early buds were lost to the freeze this year, we will continue to see what type of yield does occur to let growers know what might be the results of a worst-case situation."
During the first year of the study in 2011, 16 varieties were planted and established in two treatments - plastic-covered system and natural beds-matted row system. The black plastic cover is used to suppress the weeds around the plants. The matted row system needs to be weeded several times during the first year after planting.
"Strawberry plants send out runners where clusters of leaves and blossoms form at regular interval," Yao said. "This allows the strawberry bed to expand and provide more berries."
In the plastic-covered beds, the plants also send out runners but there is no room for the runners to root. The runners have to be removed manually. Plants in the plastic system rely on the branched crowns to produce fruit, which grow taller and taller each year. The plants that were in the matted row system had a better winter survival since the crowns of the plants were close to the ground.
"With the cold January this year, the strawberry plants with plastic cover had bad winter damage," Yao said. "But we were able to determine that Kent, Mesabi, Cavendish, Honeoye, Brunswick and Cabot were hardy cultivars."