April 2019 - 5

FANCY
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and his wife, Dee Dee Grooms.
" Everybody's welcome on this farm, "
Carl Grooms told the NASGA visitors. " I
think since I've been here a million people
have visited this farm. We're sort of like an
international celebrity group here. If you
don't pass off what you do, nobody will
ever know what you do. "
Carl Grooms has weathered many
disappointing seasons. Harvesting usually
begins in November and ends by early
April. During the 2016-17 season, the
third-generation farmer grew 170 acres
of strawberries, down from the 230 acres
he grew in 2015-16. Grooms reduced
acreage after selling off his main farm for
development of a dry storage warehouse.
The challenges have continued during
the 2018-19 season, as was related
by Dustin Grooms during the recent
NASGA tour.
" About Thanksgiving, we start
harvesting, " Dustin said. " The last week
of November we will start getting going
and typically we should be picking
berries the first of December almost
every day. However, this season has
been really different and we haven't had
fruit. Our production is half of what it
normally is as of right now. The price has
been stronger but it wasn't strong enough
to offset the volume. "
" We pick our rows here every three
days, " Dustin said. " This year, we've been
picking every four or five days. Normally,
we pick one-third of the farm every day.
This year, we've been picking half of the
farm one day and half of the farm they
next. There's just not been any fruit out
there and all of the expenses are still there.
We're still growing just as we would if there
were a lot of berries. "
Varietal challenges
Radiance is a long-standing variety
planted by Florida growers, but its
production has slipped.
" Typically, about every 10 years the
(new) variety doesn't perform like it did in
the first year or year five. We're about 10
years out and (Radiance) is not responding
like it used to, " Dustin Grooms said. " We
also are planting earlier and trying to get
that early market, the early yield. With the
supply and demand, the price typically
starts out high and just goes down and
never comes back up.
" We're trying to plant earlier and it's
so hot, " Dustin Grooms said regarding
the reduced yield. " The heat this year
was absolutely brutal. The temperature
of that plastic is 140 degrees when we're
out there setting. We feel it really hurt the
early onset. The Radiance variety makes a
bullet-shaped fruit early on. It doesn't look
good. It eats just fine, but when you go to
the grocery store and you see those, you're
not going to buy it. "
" Our season typically starts when
we start preparing the ground here in
about August, when we start tilling in a
cover crop that we have planted, " Dustin
Grooms said. " We'll actually start laying
plastic here about September 1. It will take
us a good two weeks to lay plastic. We
start planting our strawberries here about
Fancy Farms, operated by Dustin and Carl Grooms, typically harvests about 3,000 strawberry plants per acre.
the last week of September and will drag
on until about October 15.
Different varieties requires different
planting dates, he said. " We're probably
90 percent Florida Radiance on this farm
this year. We did plant a new variety, the
Florida Brilliance. It's looking to actually
replace the Radiance, probably throughout
the industry this year. The numbers
have been good. The taste is better. It's a
firmer berry and it's got a crisp to it. We're
thinking on a day like today when it's
hot it's going to hold up better than the
Radiance. Our Radiance gets a little bit soft
during the growing season, especially later.
" We're excited about (Brilliance), "
Dustin Grooms said. " There is a handful
of other varieties that are planted here.
We typically don't put all of our eggs in
one basket. We have about seven different
nurseries (represented) on this farm from
Idaho to California to North Carolina to
Nova Scotia, Canada - all over. We do
spread that out and every year it's different
with the nurserymen. They also have
weather challenges. We learn things from
them every year. "
Late-season obstacles
Marketing the crop becomes a
significant challenge as the season begins
to wind down, Dustin Grooms said.
" It's a chess match at the end of the
season, " he said. " (Retailers) call us and ask
us to pick for them 20 pallets - no more.
Well, I need to pick 50 pallets. What about
the other blocks? Then, they will say pick
until 12, pick until 3. It just gets into a big
chess match and as you try to keep things
logistically together at the end of the year, it
just falls apart. "
Dustin Grooms said the operation plants
about 3 million strawberry plants on the
Plant City farm. " We typically produce
about one-half million flats - that's eight,
one-pound flats of fruit. We need to plant
about 3,000 plants per acre. My dad says
every plant out there needs to pick $1.50
worth of fruit. It's pretty hard to do. "
" Before the first strawberry is picked,
you've got $10,000-$12,000 invested in that
acre, " he said. " By the time you get done
with harvest, you've got $30,000 an acre
(invested). For 170 acres, you can do the
math. Varieties are different. I have 52 acres
that I lost 35 percent in this year. "
The operation " typically harvests around
3,000 flats per acre. We were 2,800 flats to
the acre last year. The average price you
need back is about $10 a flat. Along with
the fresh harvest, when times go bad, Wish
Fancy Farms uses 170 H-2A workers to complete a season's production cycle.
Farms also has a processing center. We'll
dump the fruit in a green tub. They will
sell the juice. But with the labor costs for
H-2A, it's not making us any money. "
Central Florida is a bullseye for crop
enemies.
" In Florida, everything grows - disease,
bugs - it's bad for everything here, " Dustin
Grooms said. " We struggle with and fight
everything you can imagine out there. We
have a new disease out there this year and
we don't know yet what to do about it. We
work closely with the University of Florida.
They do a lot of research for us. We're
running three tests for them right now
on this farm. We rely heavily on them for
input and they do a really good job for us
to find out answers to problems. " VGN
Traceability system works
Working with its broker Wish Farms, Fancy Farms participates
in a Compliance with the Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI)
program required for Wish Farms growers. This industry-developed
program ensures case-level electronic traceability. In addition,
the growers must utilize the patented " FreshQC - How's My
Picking? " traceback system, which links each package of berries to
the picker in the field, accomplishing item-level traceability.
The system is able to provide specific information about each
individual package of produce. If a circumstance were to arise
where the safety of the produce was in question, this trace back
system allows the grower to isolate a food safety incident and
identify the exact area in the field where the produce was harvested.
" We put berries in one- and two-pound containers, " farm
manager Dustin Grooms said. " This is Fancy Farms you're at, but
we actually take it to a broker - Wish Farms - and they market
our fruit for us. The clamshells have a sticker called " How's My
Picking. " You can log onto that website and put that number in. We
know who picked that container, we know what time it was picked,
we know what field it came from and we know what variety.
" You talk about traceability, we have it, " he said. " Not many
people can say that. Food safety is supposed to give you a marketing
edge and give you more sales in the grocery store. You go to a store
today and there's five other shippers right there that don't have that
sticker. It does work. It does cost us extra money but we probably
get better sales by it. "
- Gary Pullano, Managing Editor
VGN | APRIL 2019 | 5

April 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2019