West Tenn. farmers prepare to save strawberry crop

HARDEMAN COUNTY, Tenn. — The inclement weather has caused major issues for a popular crop here in West Tennessee.

The owner of Falcon Ridge Farm, Ray Gilmer, showed an example of a damaged strawberry blossom versus a regular one.

“These are two strawberry blossoms here, and you’ll see one of them has a black center, and that bloom was damaged by the cold,” Gilmer said.

Farmers of Falcon Ridge started to plant strawberries the third week of September and expected them to begin blossoming by this time of year. The wave of cold and warm temperatures has disrupted the growth process.

“The cold weather to start with damages the blossoms, and then the warmer weather makes a strawberry quit producing,” Gilmer said.

A gradual increase and decrease in temperature is OK, but drastic changes are a threat to the crop.

“It was 75 degrees three days ago and 25 degrees last night. That’s when they’re most susceptible,” co-owner Bart Gilmer said.

Farmers are taking precautions to care for their crop, and one of the ways is by taking a heavy cloth to cover the entire field. Gilmer said the 50-feet-wide and 320-feet-long cover is very expensive and time consuming.

“It probably cost us close to $500 to put these covers on and take them off because it’s a half day job to get them on and another half day job to get them off,” Gilmer said.

Farmers say the covers will protect the crops until the weather gets down to about 26 degrees.

Gilmer hopes to start picking strawberries from late April to early May. Farmers say wet Mays hurt more than anything, so they’re hoping for a dry one this year.