Little to no availability, resulting in high prices, recently typified the European strawberry market. The summer sun did not show much of itself, and bad weather made open-field cultivation especially difficult. Greenhouse growers are less affected, although even there, given the weather extremes, summer crops remain challenging, admits Jan van Genderen, a grower at Royal Berry. His summer Opera crop was, however, unaffected, and the company has just gone into production with these.
"It's the first time we're growing this variety. The crop came into production nicely and didn't suffer from the bad weather," says Jan, who has just returned, well-rested, from vacation. "It's performing very well in summer conditions. With the warm weather forecast, we're happy with that." He is referring to summer weather with high temperatures predicted.
Royal Berry offers these strawberries in its own Royal Berry box and any other desired packaging. This large strawberry farm can provide that thanks to in-house processing and packaging.
Opera in the Royal Berry box.
Puzzle
Opera is a June bearer which, according to Jan, "has been particularly successful in summer cultivation in recent years." Reason enough for the grower to plant a summer crop with the variety for the first time this year. That was in a greenhouse where they will start growing a winter crop of the Sonata variety under LED lights in early October. They will cultivate Sonsation under lights too.
Every year, it is quite a puzzle for growers to market their strawberries year-round. At Royal Berry, the Elsanta, Furore, and Lady Emma varieties are also coming soon. Last week, they planted Malling Centenary, and this weekend and early next week, it is the unlit fall crop of Elsanta's turn. "We're well underway with that," Jan concludes.
He wants to use lights again this winter. The early lit crop will be planted around September 5. Planting the "true winter crop" will follow the Opera summer crop in early October. Royal Berry is, thus, choosing the same winter schedule as last year, when they used grow lights too.
Opera in wooden packaging.
For more information:
Jan van Genderen
Royal Berry
Email: [email protected]
www.royalberry.eu