By Clint Thompson
Registration is currently ongoing for this year’s Southeast Strawberry Expo scheduled for Nov. 8-11 at the Tryon International Equestrian Center and Resort in Mill Spring, North Carolina.
One of the topics on this year’s agenda is variety testing, as conducted by Austin Wrenn, with Wrenn’s Farm. He will provide updates on what works well in what soil type that might appeal to his growers.
“Each year we do about 40 different selections of named and advanced selections that are not yet named on different farms. We’ve got one location that’s a sandy soil, one that’s a clay soil, and then one that’s a greenhouse substrate,” Wrenn said. “We do that every year with new things to see what’s up and coming in the market and then to be able to provide our customers, which are mostly small and mid-sized strawberry operations that primarily do local sales. We’re trying to find some new genetics for them that will work well in this market.”
Wrenn supplies plant plugs to a lot of smaller growers in the Southeast. These producers conduct strawberry production, ranging mostly from 2 to 15 acres. They depend on Wrenn’s variety trials significantly.
“The plugs give those farms a big peak of production. Usually, the general timeline is around Mother’s Day, which is what we’re looking for,” Wrenn said. “A lot of those growers use plugs versus in Florida and some more of the deep south. More of the wholesale side is using bare roots instead for a more consistent production in that wholesale market.
“With our different trial locations, we see different results. There are definitely certain varieties that perform best in a sandier soil. In general, more of your Florida style genetics or Camino Real will do best in a sandy soil. We have other cultivars that perform better in a more clay loam soil. There’s a lot of different variability cultivar to cultivar.”
Learn more about the Expo and register at https://bit.ly/2026SEStrawberryExpo. Attendee registration is due by Oct. 23.