By Clint Thompson
Strawberry harvests are underway in North Alabama. Most strawberry farmers own a U-pick operation where customers come to the fields and pick their own berries. But growers should be cautious in how they operate their U-pick farms, says Eric Schavey, regional Extension agent in Northeast Alabama.
“What I told the young guy that was getting into it, he has about 15 rows, and I told him, ‘What I would do is put me some locating flags up, and say U-pick is between these flags.’ If it’s a blue row, you’re picking the blue row. If you need to finish your gallon out, go to the next row,” Schavey said. “Then walk through, so you can go behind the U-pick, and you know where they’ve picked. The next day, move it over five rows. You still need to walk those other rows and pick. If you can get it on a rotation like that, it shouldn’t be as hard on you, and you know where people are picking.
“This is the way I look at it, it’s my field and if I tell you to only pick between these rows, then that’s what you need to do.”
If there are no rules in place for what and where people can pick, they’re more prone to skip around a field looking for certain fruit. It makes it much more difficult for the farmer who has to go back over rows and harvest the leftovers.
“People are going to pick the prettiest ones,” Schavey said. “They’re going to go through and say, if I’m picking, I’m going to pick the pretty ones.
“They’ll walk the whole field to get a gallon of pretty ones.”