February 2019 - 9

Mark Harrell checks damage to the bloom after a freeze night. Photos: Sue Harrell
Mark Harrell, lower left, and his wife Sue, son Chris, daughter-in-law Candace and
granddaughter Stevie.
DEDICATED TO THE CRAFT
By Stephen Kloosterman
Associate Editor
Harrell honored for commitment to Florida strawberries
" I thought I knew how everybody
For more than 40 years, Mark and Sue
Harrell have been a fixture of the close-knit
grower community of west Florida's Plant
City and Dover.
For 25 years, that's also meant
volunteering time with the Florida
Strawberry Growers Association (FSGA),
a marketing and advocacy group for
growers in the state. FSGA recently
recognized Mark, a third-generation
grower, with a Hall of Fame award, a
gesture recognizing his commitment.
While he's remained involved in
strawberry growing for most of that
time, Harrell has had quite a few different
jobs. He started working with his father
in junior high and high school. In the
summer of 1975, he began working with
his father and brothers full time. He
married Sue in 1976, and she also helped
them grow strawberries.
Sue said working from daylight
until dark, holidays and weekends, was
something new for her.
" The crop always came first, " she
said. " I remember not opening gifts on
Christmas until New Year's when we
had temperatures below freezing during
Christmas. You had to stay up all night in
the freezing temperatures, protecting the
crop, and after temperatures went up above
freezing during the day is when you slept.
That was a rough year. "
She added, though, that the family always
had time together during the offseason.
" The family all got along together and
supported each other, " Sue Harrell said. " It
was a great way of life. "
In the late 1980s, Harrell's father
decided to get out of growing. Harrell for
a few years turned his hand to working
for other growers, providing laser leveling
and custom grading on farmlands in
Florida and Georgia, to get the water to
flow properly.
farmed, but it was sort of an eye-opener,
when I got out in different areas, " he said. " I
actually learned a lot from it. "
In 1993, Harrell and a business partner
began growing again in the Plant City/
Dover area, in a rectangle of sandy loam
soil, a dead orange grove about 0.75 miles
long and 0.25 miles wide, with about
90 acres. The growing season ran from
November until April. Harrell was able
to produce about 3,000 to 3,500 trays
per acre. For large growers, harvesting
usually becomes unprofitable around the
first week of April, and many growers like
Harrell practice double cropping, getting a
second crop of melons or cucumbers from
the ground.
In the summer of 2016, Harrell's
farming operation was sold. It's now
owned by SweetLife Farms, a privatelyheld
corporation.
" It was sort of sad, because I had been
on this particular piece of property for
23 years, " Harrell said. But the memories
also motivated him to stay there as the
operation's farm manager.
What works in Florida
The University of Florida continues to
produce a regular stream of new berry
varieties for growers.
While Harrell is growing propriety
varieties for Driscoll's, he said most
independent growers' mainstay has been
Florida Radiance, a berry with good size
and and taste, but which doesn't seem to
handle the rain well. Brilliance is the next
in line to replace Radiance. Florida Beauty,
another university variety, has been earning
mixed reviews.
Like other growers in the Southeast,
Harrell believes Mexican imports are
hurting the domestic market prices for
fruit, and should face higher tariffs.
" For every flat that's brought in out of
Mexico, there's one less flat that we can put
on the market at a reasonable price, " he
said. " The price is driven down, sometimes
even because of an excess of fruit between
ours and Mexico. They're fast approaching
having more fruit than we are. "
The U.S. government's H-2A visa
program for employing foreign workers
has become the Florida grower's go-to
solution for seasonal labor.
" The dependability and willingness
to work has been better with the H-2A
workers, " Harrell said. " They're eager to
make as much money as possible, so they
welcome opportunities to work. "
Promoting the industry
Plant City is the country's selfproclaimed
Winter Strawberry Capital of
the World. Growers in the area are a social
group - eating together and vacationing
together when they're not busy farming.
" Most everybody knows everybody, "
Harrell said. " There's a lot of
communication between growers. It
helps us all to head off a problem before
it happens to us all. "
FSGA, a voluntary group of
growers, plays an advocacy role when
legislative bills could affect growers. It
also organizes " Buy Local " and other
promotional campaigns for growers.
" They kind of spearhead looking
after the growers in various ways, "
Harrell said. He's served on the board of
directors multiple times and has spent
a time volunteering, conducting media
interviews and donating berries for
projects and promotions
The Harrell family remains heavily
involved in the industry - Sue Harrell
is the director of marketing for FSGA,
and their son Christopher is with RCS
Refrigeration Construction, building
commercial refrigerated storage for the
growers. Harrell's daughter-in-law Candace
is at Patterson Trucking, which serves many
agricultural clients.
At a FSGA banquet in late December,
Mark was given the Hall of Fame award,
and his family crowded around him for
a photo.
" It's more of an award for years of
service, " Harrell said. " The farm I'm on
now I've been on for 25 years, and going
on 26. " VGN
Berry diverse
While working to do custom
grading on other farms, Florida
strawberry grower Mark Harrell
became familiar with the wide
variety of climates and soils
growers cultivate in the Southeast,
including the following:
* In the Lake Placid mud
plains, the soil was " as
dry and fluffy as talcum
powder " until it rains, of
course. Then the mud
became so soupy and sticky,
it's impassible even for an
experienced tractor driver.
* In Immokalee, Florida, in
some places there were
only 6-8 inches of soil
above the lime rock base,
and irrigation is done with
a system of lateral ditches.
* In south Georgia, the claybased
soils were also much
different from what Harrell
was used to. Growers used
portable irrigation pipes
laid out over the ground,
Harrell said.
VGN | FEBRUARY 2019 | 9
February 2019

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