YAKIMA — A new early-season fruit has joined Yakima Valley stalwarts such as cherries, apples and pears in the spring and summer marketplace.
Cody Edwards has turned a COVID-year backyard experiment into a full-fledged business, harvesting between 6,000 and 8,000 pounds of strawberries on about 1.5 acres near Toppenish.
With his wife, Megan, Edwards sells the strawberries at local farmstands, to area restaurants and at Ellensburg and Yakima farmers markets through his business, Yakima Berry Company.
“I could probably sell 150 boxes a week at the farmers market if I had them to sell,” Edwards said Wednesday as he walked among his large strawberry patch at Cornerstone Ranches, near Toppenish. “Right now, as much as I can grow, I can sell. It’s the first fruit of spring, and people love to see it.”
Because strawberry plants grow close to the ground, they present different challenges than tree fruit such as cherries and apples, he said. That includes being affected by cooler-than-usual early spring weather, which this year has reduced the early harvest numbers compared to 2021 and 2022.
“We’ve had two pickings so far this year, each one about 110 boxes. Each box contains six pint-sized containers of strawberries,” Edwards said. “That’s down a bit — usually we average about 200 boxes (per picking). Hopefully that will pick up with the warmer weather.”
Strawberries in Wash.
While Edwards said he is one of a handful of strawberry growers east of the Cascades, Washington farmers have been cultivating the fruit for nearly 200 years, reports Wendy Hoashi-Erhardt, who directs the small fruit breeding program at Washington State University’s Puyallup Research and Extension Center.
Washington state has a long history of strawberry cultivation, dating to the 1830s. But during the last 50 years, production of strawberries in the U.S. has largely shifted to California, Hoashi-Erhardt noted in WSU’s summer 2022 report on the fruit.
“The market has changed a lot. Washington and Oregon used to be major strawberry producers in the U.S. Starting in the 1970s, California became the dominant player,” she said.
The Golden State’s strawberry yield more than tripled between 1974 and 1994. Today, California grows more than 90 percent of the nation’s strawberries, while Washington grows about 1 percent, Hoashi-Erhardt said.
Still, strawberries remain a high-value specialty crop in Washington and the Pacific Northwest. In 2018, Washington harvested 8.6 million pounds of fruit valued at nearly $9.2 million, she noted.
U.S. consumption of fresh strawberries has nearly doubled in the past 20 years, up from 4.86 pounds per capita in 2000 to 8.5 in 2020. The demand is there, said Hoashi-Erhardt, who has led WSU’s small fruit breeding program since 2020.
“I personally think strawberries have a special place in Washington as a specialty crop,” she added. “Everyone loves strawberries. And we produce some of the best strawberries in the world.”
East side growing
Yakima Berry Company’s Edwards believes the hot days and cool nights of the Yakima Valley bring an extra element of sweetness to his strawberries.
“This creates a sugar level that is unmatched and a taste difference noticed by all after their first bite,” Edwards said.
