I love and appreciate the health benefits of consuming small fruits such as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, currants and gooseberries. (Grapes are in a class of their own, with grapes for fresh consumption and others specifically for wine making.) The nice thing about small fruits is that you can consume them fresh or preserved or as fruit juice or a fruity wine.

Since I was a vegetable specialist, I must confess that I haven’t really kept up with the general field of small fruits. I thought I’d have a conversation with Kathy Demchak, small fruit Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Science at Penn State, who I consider to be one of the best in the profession. We recently connected at the Penn State Horticulture Farm where we both spent many hours conducting both field and high tunnel research on the production of vegetables and small fruits.

Kathy has been in her current position as a senior Extension associate since July 1999 but has been employed in department since March 1983. Kathy said she would be mainly associated with the Mid-Atlantic region, but I know her impact has certainly gone far beyond those states. The breadth of her research and list of cooperators is vast.

She and I agreed the differing horticultural regions all have varying amounts of small fruit production, depending on the crops. Some cater to large wholesale markets while others are primarily involved in their local food systems.

The first small fruits that come to mind are strawberries and blueberries. Kathy pointed out that Florida and Georgia are growing more southern highbush blueberries which is taking the market further south, with wholesale production moving up to North Carolina, and then New Jersey and Michigan.

In Pennsylvania, Kathy sees some movement out of strawberries and into blueberries. She said the strawberries on larger acreage are still matted row culture, although some growers have adopted the annual hill plasticulture production system. Although Kathy worked on strawberry production in the high tunnels, she said that the system never really caught on. I mentioned that I always thought that having the fruit protected from the elements and being earlier in the market would be a positive factor, but it didn’t seem enough.

Early in Kathy’s research she used the annual hill plasticulture system and planted strawberries in autumn in high tunnels and harvested them earlier in spring. We vegetable folks followed those strawberries with a crop of cucumbers and finished off the year with an autumn crop of transplanted broccoli. Kathy said maybe a strongly flavored red ripe strawberry for the fresh local market is the way to go – or having strawberries with excellent taste available in autumn.

Weather is the bane of small fruit producers, especially the U-pick operations. Rain plays havoc not only on the people coming out to pick but can encourage diseases. High temperatures can discourage pickers although the berries are in excellent condition, so growers really need to have a crew available if either of these weather events happen so that berries can continued to be harvested.

I asked Kathy why we haven’t seen higher tunnel production of red raspberries and blackberries on the East Coast given the amount of research she did at the Horticulture Farm in the high tunnels. She said the problem was that it’s hard controlling spotted wing drosophila and that California didn’t have the pressure we had with the insect. California also had the advantage in that the insect was killed in the trip across country in the refrigerated trucks.

(Kathy did excellent research on that insect that eventually established a parasitoid to control SWD.)

Kathy Demchak, senior Extension associate of Plant Science. Photo courtesy of Tess Li

Kathy said local production of strawberries is strong and yields/acre are up, even though acreage is down slightly because of the increase in yields/acre. We agreed that pricing of a crop is always interesting and good growers need to factor in everything that is involved in producing the crop to really determine what to price a crop, whether retail or wholesale.

Kathy observed the older generation that she worked with over the years are passing on and the new generation is picking up the operations. She also commented that she’s observed folks that have retired early from another profession and always wanted to farm are buying some land and putting in small fruits. She said they need good, solid research-based information and that is Extension’s mission. This has manifested itself in the availability of two excellent publications: the Commercial Small Fruits Guide and the Homeowner’s Small Fruit Guide.

Kathy is always reluctant to recommend where to get quality small fruit plants. She said it’s extremely important to source small fruits from reputable sources. She mentioned Nourse Farms, who have been supplying small fruits since 1932; Indiana Berry & Plant Company; and Maplewood Farm Market LLC near Shippensburg, PA.

In talking about blueberries, Kathy mentioned an interesting fact about nematodes in blueberries. For years she didn’t think that we had any nematodes or problems with them, but she was also noticing that some blueberries just were not thrifty. Finally working with a nematologist, they unearthed that the stubby root nematode was causing the problem. There’s always some new pest!

Talking about blueberry growers, she said they are utilizing drip irrigation and fertigation to manage their nitrogen primarily and using tissue testing and soil testing to back up the recommendations. I always liked drip irrigation for more precise water management and to prevent wetting the foliage of the plants.

In Kathy’s over 41 years of working in the Department of Horticulture and then Plant Science and 25 years with Extension working with small fruit growers, she told me that they were the nicest people in the world. She did a lot of cooperative on-farm research with many of them and they always wanted to know more about the best way to grow their fruit and they were always willing to reach out to help other small fruit growers.

Kathy said growing a small fruit crop requires preparation, patience and attention to detail – certainly good advice for any crop.

Kathy, it has been a pleasure to work with you all those years and call you a friend and colleague. When you finally decide to retire, we wish you the best and know that you will be sorely missed by your colleagues and growers that you have faithfully served for many years.

You can contact me with feedback on my columns or ideas for future columns at wlamont@psu.edu.