Early Minnesota strawberry crop has been dismal. But farmers have hope

INTERVIEWER: Well, let us talk a little bit more about what you heard earlier in the program. John Latimer was saying that it is, of course, berry season in Minnesota. Wild and farm-raised blueberries and strawberries are available this time of the year-- usually. Usually. But this year, the early-summer strawberry crop has been kind of dismal.

Why is that? Well, Tonya Sanner is the person behind Firefly Berries in Olmstead County, which is in southeastern Minnesota. Tonya is with us right now to talk about what happened to their strawberries at Firefly Berries. Tonya, welcome. How are you doing?

TONYA SANNER: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me.

INTERVIEWER: Thanks. Say, tell me about the farm before we get into the nitty-gritty about the strawberries.

TONYA SANNER: Sure. We purchased the farm 12 years ago. And it used to be called Sterling Fruit Farm, but since then, we changed the name. We grow mostly strawberries and Concord grapes, and then we have some small fruits that we sell, kind of, at the farmers market-- blackberries, elderberries, raspberries, that sort of thing.

INTERVIEWER: Have you already picked-- have the ready-picked and the you-pick berries seasons-- those are the same seasons? Are they right alongside each other?

TONYA SANNER: Oh, yes. We have-- strawberries are usually in June for two to three weeks. And then, Concord grapes are in the fall, kind of like apple time-- mid-September to mid-October.

INTERVIEWER: Got it. OK, so how is the strawberry crop this year?

TONYA SANNER: It was almost a complete loss for us. It was a rough year.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, no!

TONYA SANNER: Yeah. Yeah, normally, we only grow about two acres of strawberries. We're pretty small. But normally, we can get about 3,000 pounds per acre. We were getting about 300 to 350 pounds. So almost non-existent.

INTERVIEWER: Wow. So you didn't have any ready-picked strawberries, I bet.

TONYA SANNER: No. Yeah, so what we decided-- we kind of like to have-- we want to have a good-enough quality for people when they're going to pay for already picked berries. And they just weren't the quality or the quantity that we wanted, so we did not do any already-picked. We only had just three days that we were open for you-pick.

INTERVIEWER: So what happened?

TONYA SANNER: Well, that's a lot of things, actually. Probably every weather challenge-- almost every weather challenge-- can't say, "every," because something new will pop up-- that we could have had happened. So we went into the season very dry, because it was dry conditions last fall.

And then, we had a cool spring, a late spring, followed by hail. We had some frost. We had heavy rains and high winds. And it just sort of-- it was hard on the crop in so many ways. But the final kicker, I think, was the heavy rains and winds that brought a fungus to at least one of our fields, and that just kind of wiped everything out.

INTERVIEWER: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What was the fungus?

TONYA SANNER: It's called leather rot, and it doesn't happen very often to us. We're a farm. We're not organic-certified, but we don't spray any chemicals on our farm.

And so we always see a little bit, because you get wet spots. But this particular fungus-- it spreads really quickly when you have heavy rains or standing water, high winds, because it has little spores, and then as it splashes around, it moves from plant to plant and affects the fruit.

So-- and the fruit itself-- you know, normally, you can get something called leaf spot, which just affects the foliage a little bit, but not so much the fruit. But this leaf rot, it actually goes into the fruit, and it makes it sort of a leathery texture, and that kind of gives it an off, bitter taste. So you can't even really harvest them for jam or something, other than fresh eating.

INTERVIEWER: What are you hearing? So this happened to your farm. What about the other berry growers in Minnesota? What are you hearing?

TONYA SANNER: I would say most of the growers in our area, at least here in Southeast Minnesota and Northern Iowa that I know and have talked to-- very similar crops. The drought conditions-- they didn't set buds very well in the fall.

Frost-- we only had frost here once, but some places had it twice. So that kills any buds, so you just have, quantity-wise, less strawberries. So yes, very similar with the ones that I have spoken to-- the other growers.

INTERVIEWER: I'm betting these are fairly small farms that are impacted by this, right?

TONYA SANNER: Yeah, I would say so. Most of the farms that I-- the growers that I've talked to, I would say-- anywhere from, like, 2 to 6 acres of strawberries.

INTERVIEWER: So gosh, maybe some small growers, if this continues, might go out of business.

TONYA SANNER: Yeah, that's the hard thing-- is that in order to be-- we're lucky enough. My husband has a day job, which he keeps. But in order to do farming like this sort of thing full-time, it's just becoming not very feasible, because you can't rely on the weather. It's become very unpredictable.

And then, you don't really want your children, necessarily-- but we have four children, and I don't necessarily want them, if it's not reliable, for that to be their own business. Because then, there's so many risks involved with it that you just can't control.

INTERVIEWER: So in terms of the financial impact for your family, it's been a little mitigated, softened, because your husband has the day job.

TONYA SANNER: Yes, yeah. We've been very lucky. He grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin. And when we bought the place, he always said, we're never-- I'm never going to leave my day job, because I don't want to have to rely on this to pay our bills.

INTERVIEWER: So what about consumers, you know? Because you're having these problems. What about-- what about them? Where do they go?

TONYA SANNER: You know, we see, kind of, two different types of consumers, in the sense that there are some that are very aware of what's going on, visit the farmer's market regularly. And then, we have consumers who really don't even understand or have a knowledge of when it's strawberry season, so they end up going to the grocery store, and they see the berries there, and they think, oh, well, the berries are at the grocery store. What's the problem here in Minnesota?

But to be a small grower, you just have to-- how do I say-- you have to be a really big grower to be able to take the losses and the hits as they come, in order to keep sending them to the grocery store, kind of thing.

INTERVIEWER: So before you go, you mentioned your Concord grape-- you have them in the fall. Is that for-- can they-- are they looking OK? Can folks come out and pick those when they're ready?

TONYA SANNER: Yeah, you know, we were a little worried, because we got hit pretty hard with hail as they were just coming out of there, you know, leafing out. But they have bounced back, and they're doing pretty good outside of the Japanese beetles that always attack them. But yeah, we have about 640 vines, so we have a lot of them. And we do plan to be open for you-pick and pre-pick in the fall with those.

INTERVIEWER: And I bet people pick those for, what, jellies and jams?

TONYA SANNER: Yeah, you can actually eat them fresh. They do have seeds, but they have a really grapey, grapey taste. And we make grape juice and jelly out of them, so.

INTERVIEWER: All right. Well, I appreciate the update. I wish you all the best. Thank you, Tonya.

TONYA SANNER: Thank you.

INTERVIEWER: Tonya Sanner is from Firefly Berries, which is based in Olmstead County in southeastern Minnesota.