Weather Impacts Some Wisconsin Strawberry Growers

Weather is having an impact on berry growers in Wisconsin. Some berry farms are seeing fewer strawberries this season.

Fred Erickson’s family has been running a fruit farm in Bayfield for generations. Erickson said winter damage has hurt plants on his roughly five acres of strawberries.

“I’m down about 30 percent from last year, but that’s strawberries,” he said. “Take the good with the bad.“

A lengthy winter and sudden dip in temperatures last fall likely affected strawberry plants, said Matt Cogger, horticulture educator with the University of Wisconsin-Extension for Ashland and Bayfield counties.

“We had a relatively warm spell in October, and the thinking is that the plants didn’t quite get dormant quickly enough before the colder temperatures hit,” said Cogger.

Despite the damage, Erickson said it hasn’t been a bad year for strawberries. Although, Tom Arnold said he’s seen better years. Arnold owns Arnold’s Strawberries in Rudolph. Arnold said he lost about 10 percent of his roughly five acres of strawberries due to rains during the early part of the season.

“The berries in the beginning of the season are all the nice large ones, and, if they don’t get picked in a timely manner, they’ll start to spoil,” he said. “Then, they’ll spoil the berries that are sitting next to them at the same time.”

Arnold said his plants didn’t experience any winter damage, but he said other growers weren’t so lucky.

“Actually, one grower called me asking me if I could wholesale him berries to sell in their market stands because … they had none in their fields,” said Arnold.

John Govin, who owns Govin’s Meats and Berries in Menomonie, said he’s had an excellent season with his roughly six acres of strawberries. He said most planters in his area had winter damage.

“You know, it’s the strangest thing,” he said. “We all have very similar cultural practices, but, for whatever reason, everything kind of clicked on our farm this year.”

The strawberry season has come to end for Govin and Arnold, but other growers are still open for people looking to pick their own.