Organic berry production increases in Pajaro Valley

As the age of increasing strawberry yields in ground treated with methyl bromide draws to a close, the Watsonville area, where University of California researchers first tried that fumigant in 1953, looks to be leading the way again in the next berry revolution.

Organic strawberry, raspberry and blackberry acreage in the Pajaro Valley has already enjoyed more than a decade of impressive growth, as growers find that the price premiums more than make up for the higher cost of production.

"For cane berries, it's about 20 percent organic in the Pajaro Valley, and for strawberries it's about 10 percent," said Mark Bolda, UC Cooperative Extension farm advisor based in Watsonville.

Significant organic berry production began outside Watsonville, which benefitted from a sustainable agriculture program at the nearby UC campus and from markets among Monterey Bay consumers.

"For strawberries, there was a shift to organics in the 1990s," said Laura Tourte, UCCE farm management advisor. "That's when Stephen Gliessman and Sean Swezey from the agro-ecology program at UC Santa Cruz were starting to work with the growers. That was the beginning of organic strawberries on a commercial scale."

Statewide berry acreage certified by California Certified Organic Farmers has nearly tripled in the last five years, from under 5,500 acres to 15,000.

Bolda, Tourte and recently retired UCCE specialist in agricultural and resource economics Karen Klonsky analyzed the emergence of a new berry sector in the Monterey Bay Area in an article in California Agriculture.

Santa Cruz County Agricultural Commissioner's Office statistics show there were 70 farmers growing fruits and vegetables on 2,700 organic acres in 2005, and a decade later there were 100 farmers on more than 4,000 certified crop acres.

The increase in certified crop acreage in Santa Cruz County over the last decade is evidence that the Watsonville area continues as a center of organic berry production, even though no one keeps statistics specifically on organic berries by county.

Premium organic prices are needed to take up the slack as berry farmers lose some of the gains in yields achieved in recent decades through fumigation with methyl bromide, and precise irrigation control with drip systems.

"Yields for strawberries statewide increased from a range of 2 to 4 tons per acre prior to the introduction of soil fumigants to 16 tons per acre by 1969," the researchers wrote in their California Agriculture article. "Irrigation practices also evolved, shifting from furrow irrigation in the 1960s to drip irrigation in the 1980s, which led to further improvements in plant disease management and greater water use efficiency. These and other enhancements meant that by 2012, yields could exceed 35 tons per acre."

With the elimination of methyl bromide this year, conventional berry growers face an uncertain future, because growers will no longer be able to grow strawberries in the same ground every other year.

"People are going to think out of the box; they are going to have to take a more integrated approach than methyl bromide," Bolda said. "Growers will be leaning very hard on chloropicrin. We are also researching mustard seed oil, steam and other fumigants."

As strawberry production in the Pajaro Valley dipped the last few years, area farmers have benefitted from higher prices for their organic and direct-marketed berries, and the berry sector has also become far more diverse, with blackberries and raspberries becoming major crops.

In the Watsonville area, raspberry acreage is substantial, having already grown to one-third of all berry production in Santa Cruz County.

(Bob Johnson is a reporter in Davis. He may be contacted at bjohn11135@aol.com.)