Recent wet weather creates significant impact on the quantity of strawberries at local farms

Yahoo

a day ago

FEDDING HILLS, Mass. (WWLP) – The recent wet weather has had a significant impact on the quantity of strawberries at local farms this Spring.
The strawberry season is in full swing but for some local farms they saw a rough start. Recent excessive rain led to them struggling to keep their strawberry fields dry and free from excess mositure. Kosinski and Pietz Strawberry Farms in Feeding Hills experiencing this firsthand.
'We noticed a lot of smaller ones. Things were starting to rot a little too quickly and we were noticing a lot of green and white berries out there too,' said Devin Pietz, Operator at Kosinski and Pietz Strawberry Farms.
While the rain may have stunted some growth of berries in the fields there's still been a huge turnaround in the couple of days with sunlight. 'We're finally got an appropriate amount of sunlight, the strawberries are finally popping. They're looking absolutely phenomenal,' said Peitz.
And the field had plenty for people to pick. Peitz says with more people coming into the fields this helps prevent more strawberries from rotting on the vines. And with the lower stock the rain did create it won't be affecting strawberry prices.
'We're always going to make sure we do that by averaging out what it is that it's costing us and making sure that we can give it to everybody in a reasonable amount,' added Peitz.
He hopes to see more drier weather to help the remaining strawberries reach their full potential as the busy picking season picks up. 'We got another turn of strawberries that should be coming around in about a week or so. We're not close to finished. We've got at least another week. And after that, the weather. I'll have to tell us a little bit more,' said Pietz.
Ideally, he says the perfect combination for strawberry growth is a balance of rain to grow them big and sunshine to grow them sweet. As of right now, the farm still remains open from 7AM to 3PM everyday for picking. And this Fathers Day, the farm says there'll still be enough to pick.
WWLP-22News, an NBC affiliate, began broadcasting in March 1953 to provide local news, network, syndicated, and local programming to western Massachusetts. Watch the 22News Digital Edition weekdays at 4 p.m. on WWLP.com.
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