The emergence of neopestalotiopsis disease in Southeast strawberries has forced growers to manage their crops differently compared to previous years.
Take Florida producer Dustin Grooms for instance. Grooms, who grows strawberries with Fancy Farms in Plant City, Florida, had to recently consider the disease’s impact against managing the crop amid plunging temperatures.
“We had some cold weather a couple of days ago, and we decided not to run water. A lot of people did, and a lot of people didn’t; just depends on your area,” Grooms said. “Walking the fields now, we definitely lost a little bit of blooms out here because we didn’t run water. We were worried about spreading the disease of the neopestalotiopsis. It was just a light frost, but I guess it sat on some of them too long and burned them up. It was nothing real crazy but more than I’d like to see.”…