Blooms & Berries Farm Market in Loveland is canceling its annual U-pick Strawberry Days event because of a lack of healthy crops.
In a Facebook post Tuesday, the farm wrote that strawberry growers across the U.S. are facing this shortage.
“Last August, we were just days from taking delivery of eight acres of strawberry plants, only to be informed, like thousands of other farms, that healthy plants were not available to us,” Blooms & Berries owner Jeff Probst said in the post.
One problem a lot of Ohio and Kentucky strawberry growers are facing this year is Neopestalotiopsis.
The aggressive fungal disease infects plants' leaves, fruits, roots, and crowns, ultimately killing them.
Nicole Gauthier is a professor of plant pathology at the University of Kentucky. She says many farmers received infected plugs last fall, shrinking their harvests this spring.
“I know consumers will be affected, because we just won't have the local strawberries this year,” Gauthier said. “We may see a lot more imported strawberries, where we used to have the U-picks and going to the farmers' market or the farm stand.”
Farmers are taking financial hits from the crop losses. And people will likely see higher prices for strawberries.
The disease is emerging, so researchers are still trying to answer questions like how long the fungi can survive in Ohio and Kentucky’s climate and how to best manage Neopestalotiopsis.
“It's going to be a few years before our industry is able to rein in this new disease,” Gauthier said.
In the meantime, local growers are trying to adapt.
Blooms & Berries says it will hold Blackberry Days this July.
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