U.P. strawberry crop looks good
U.P. strawberry crop looks good
By LAURA KIRBY, Houghton Mining Gazette
CHASSELL — If you’ve driven through Chassell lately, you might just have noticed the plethora of strawberry salesmen, women and kids, or kids dressed as strawberries on U.S. 41. But is it a heightened marketing campaign or is the strawberry season booming this year?
Chassell farmer Kathy Ohtonen said fruits are selling well, and pickers are in abundance at her farm on Klingville Road. The combination of little winter kill and a mild fall has amounted to what is known in the strawberry business as a good “set,” she said.
“We have no irrigation, and even without irrigation we’re doing well,” she said. “We’re just small but we’ve had a lot of people in here.”
Ohtonen said she picked her first berries of the year on the first day of summer, which is early in the season.
Climate conditions make for good growth, but other factors can also play a role in the quality of the crop, farm owner Mary Crane said. The Crane farm looks forward to a boom in strawberry production next year when seeds they planted this year blossom.
“It goes in three-year cycles,” she said. “Here we have a three-year field and a second-year field. We did plant some, so next year should be really good.”
And while the strawberry season is booming, it’s nothing compared to what it once was, said Frank Murphy, chairman of this weekend’s Copper Country Strawberry Festival in Chassell.
He estimated back in 1939 there were about100 members of the Copper Country Strawberry Growers Association, with 11,800 crates sold that year. Membership plummeted to about 41 by the 1940s with some speculating harsh frosts or dry weather affecting the harvest, and continued to drop as the country struggled through World War II.
Nowadays there are only about 10 to 15 farmers left in the area.
“Right now, the strawberry community is very labor- intensive,” Murphy said. “It’s best to get into that business if you got a lot of kids.”
Still, picking season could be important for the local economy in boosting tourism.
With the build-up to this weekend’s Copper Country Strawberry Festival for example, local tourist attractions are experiencing one of their busiest weeks of the year, said business owner Nancy Leonard.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen quite as many roadside stands,” she said.
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