Building A Better Berry
By: Sean Timberlake
Published: May 11, 2010

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How well do you know your strawberries? When you pick up a carton of  berries at your local store, do you know their provenance, their names?  Like most, I took mine for granted, assuming one berry was more or less  like another.
On a recent trip to Central California, I had the opportunity to  visit one of the organic farms that supplies überproducer Driscoll's, to  learn a little more about what exactly goes into building a better  berry.
The coastal community of Watsonville's fertile land and cool,  temperate climate make optimal conditions for growing strawberries, and  the landscape is carpeted with rows of the plants as far as the eye can  see. Here, Phil Stewart's family farm is one of several who provide  berries to Driscoll's. For those who think farming is a simple matter,  consider this: Stewart actually has a Ph.D. in Horticulture with a  specific focus on strawberries. Yes, he is a Doctor of Strawberries. The  Strawberry Whisperer, if you will.
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Phil, pictured above left with Patrick Sheehy of Driscoll's, shared  the process behind breeding the plants. Strawberries are annuals, and so  must be replanted each year. But before the planting begins in earnest,  Phil and his team must first determine which varieties to plant.
For those of us in Northern California, some variety's names may be  familiar from the farmer's markets: Albion and Seascape often grace the  stands at the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market. But Driscoll's develops their  own proprietary varieties.
By method of cross-breeding, they end up with some 26,000 varieties  at  first. A small percentage of these will germinate and grow, even fewer  will fruit, and just a few might actually pass muster over a two-year  test period and make it to  market.
Many factors go into deciding whether a variety is worthy of  production. Flavor is certainly one of them, but shape, color, yield,  rain tolerance and of course shelf life also must be considered.
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Unfortunately, this does mean that sometimes they develop a variety  that excels in flavor, but fails in shelf life or rain tolerance, and is  therefore not suitable for production. But those varieties are  continually reintroduced in the gene pool. Ultimately, a scant few  varieties strike the perfect balance of all factors.
While new test varieties are being put to the test, they have cryptic  monikers such as 96R116. But once a variety has proven itself worthy,  it is given a name and put into production. Currently, Del Rey, San Juan  and Takara are among the varieties being grown on Stewart's farm. But  you won't find the names on the packaging. Driscoll's goal is to produce  berries with great consistency. In other words, it shouldn't matter  which variety you're getting, so long as it's good.
This kind of large-scale production may seem out of step with today's  drive toward restoring heirloom varietals, but this is not  Monsanto-like monoculture nor is it genetic engineering. It's classic  genetics, using cross-breeding to coax out the best traits through sheer  trial and error. Maintaining the berries' genetic diversity is key to  the long-term sustainability of the process.
Once berries are ready for harvest, it is an almost entirely  manual effort to pick them. Pickers learn how to wrest them from the  plant with a quick snap of the wrist, severing the fruit from the stem  neatly. It's not as easy as it looks, and it's back-breaking work.
Stewart is also not only interested in chasing the ideal Driscoll's  berry. He dabbles in more experimental combinations as well. Phil shared  one of his more esoteric creations, a berry that remains almost pearly  white; the tiny seeds blush red when the fruit ripens.

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It's unlikely you'll see this berry on the shelf anytime soon. Aside  from the challenge of determining when the berry is actually ripe, there  would also be the matter of educating the market to accept a white  berry. Pity, for the berry tasted quite good indeed, with bright notes  of tropical fruit and citrus.
Another variety, 44R40, was luridly  red. This had been bred with a European variety called Mara des Bois,  which is famous for its intense and musky flavor. The reason for this is  a volatile compound, methyl anthranilate, that gives it a candy-like  aroma reminiscent alternately of concord grapes or bubble gum. This one  seems to have more commercial promise. I know I'd seek it out.
This  epic saga, this great and complex effort, culminates in one simple  result: Cartons of bright, red berries at markets all around the  country.