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Berry Seedlings Are Coming, Are The Planters?

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By JAN HOLLINGSWORTH, The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 8, 2007

Updated: 09/06/2007 04:11 pm

PLANT CITY - The shiny cobalt tractors and tangerine Kubotas utility vehicles parked at the Trinkle center attracted their share of attention at last week's Agritech Conference.

However, it was the promise of news on the state of the industry that coaxed growers from their fields to the local Hillsborough Community College campus to attend the two-day event that traditionally kicks off strawberry season.

With the county's berry land plowed, rolled, irrigated and awaiting final preparations, the growers gathered for a wide-ranging forum on tools, techniques and threats to this year's crop.

'They didn't give us a whole lot of good news,' said grower Mike St. Martin.

There were updates on pest management, government regulations and possible solutions to emerging problems.

One presentation focused on the use of bumble bees to pollinate crops in light of a mysterious, widespread die-off of hives of honey bees.

Another dealt with predicting fruit quality and yield.

These issues, though, were dwarfed by continuing concerns over migrant labor and the impending loss of methyl bromide, the most important weapon in the growers' arsenal of chemicals used in producing berries.
Methyl bromide is a fumigant that virtually sterilizes the soil, eliminating fungus, nematodes, nut sedge and other weeds and crop-destroying insects.

It also has been blamed for damaging the Earth's protective ozone layer and is subject to a global phase-out.

'That's what it's really all about - the phase-out process,' said Shawn Crocker, executive director of the Florida Strawberry Growers Association.

Last year, berry growers were using a formulation that contained 67 percent methyl bromide and 33 percent chloropicrin. This year, they were supposed to use a 50/50 mixture that growers say is not nearly as effective under current cultural practices.

Just weeks before they began preparing their fields, growers were given a reprieve and are able to use the 67/33 formulation again this year.

A number of alternative chemicals are showing promise at the experimental stage if the growers can hold out until they are available for commercial use, Crocker said.

Meanwhile, immigration reform has emerged as an issue that rivals methyl bromide in complexity and importance to berry growers.

In mid-August, the Department of Homeland Security announced its intent to cross-match Social Security numbers supplied by Mexican workers the growers want to hire to plant and pick this year's crop.

The stepped-up enforcement begins Friday, little more than a week before thousands of strawberry seedlings begin arriving from Canada. Just as planting is to commence in earnest, growers may find themselves without anyone to help do it.

Hillsborough's 8,000-plus acres of berries - the largest winter crop anywhere - will start ripening by November. The local berry season runs through late March or early April, depending on weather conditions here and in California, which supplies the nation with berries the rest of the year.

'We don't know what we're gong to do if we can't let them work,' St. Martin said. 'All we can do is document it, write it down, make a federal form 1099 on it. We check all their papers.'

Nonetheless, the majority of berry operations have undocumented workers, he said.

'We all know that. If they had legal papers, they wouldn't be in the strawberry fields. They'd be working in hotels, landscaping, hamburger joints,' said St. Martin, one of three brothers who grows vegetables along State Road 39.

Local growers, who have been urging Congress to come up with a comprehensive solution to migrant labor issues that arose last year, had hoped immigration reform would have been sorted out by now.

'It's not fair to have a new enforcement effort without solving the immigration issues,' Crocker said.

The timing is also unfortunate, with the newly drafted enforcement rule coming after the growers have invested in this season - chemicals, plastic, seedlings - at a cost of more than $7,000 per acre.

The St. Martin brothers have about 90 acres between them, ready to grow berries and no clear idea how to get them planted and picked.

Mike St. Martin said he has $250,000 in production money invested in this year's crop.

'I really thought the government would have all this straightened out by now, but now I'm getting nervous,' he said. 'We'll have to decide to plant with illegal workers or not plant.

'We could end up in a lot of trouble.'

For now, the growers in the winter strawberry capital continue to prepare the ground to receive the seedlings that will arrive in the coming weeks.

Crocker, who grew up in a Polk County citrus and cattle family, is a relative newcomer to the world of berries, having signed on as executive director earlier this year.

'I want to be a hands-on advocate for the growers,' he said. 'I want to sweat.'

So he is learning the ways of berries from area growers.

Last week he found himself sharing a tractor with Carl Grooms, a legend of sorts in berry circles.

Grooms and Crocker climbed into the air-conditioned cab of the tractor, equipped with a global positioning system designed to create perfect mounds of soil over the irrigation pipes buried across the field. The soil was gassed with the methyl bromide mixture, the sheets of plastic laid over the sterile soil to seal it in.

Up and down the rows the tractor rolled, the cool cab filled with country music.

Berry season has begun. There will be plenty of time to sweat.

Tribune photographer Greg Fight contributed to this story. Reporter Jan Hollingsworth can be reached at (813) 865-4436 or jhollingsworth@tampatrib.com.

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