There are some herbicides available for strawberries at planting. Prowl H2O and Sparten are labeled in Wisconsin for planting time with dormant plants. Our plants come from Nourse Farms in MA and are frozen when we get them thus are still dormant. We need to spray as soon as we are done planting, before they start growing.

We do have a pick you own business that has been in operation for 20 years, this will be our 21st year of picking. Our normal start date is the 15th of June but I think we will be a little later this year. the season normally last about 16 to 18 days.

Mark, we do have a transplanter, which was actually built for tobacco. It takes 2 people per row and is a 2 row machine. The speed is probably less then 1 mile an hour, thus 32000 plants or 4 acres is a 10  hour job. I will include some pictures.

You are right about taking the blossoms of the first year. The plants will put berries on the first year but they say if you allow them to fruit it will reduce the total yield of the planting by half. It is the hardest job we do but yes we do take the blossoms off the first year. We get about 12 kids lined up and can usually do it in about 2 hours. Sweet rolls and cash, and usually new kids are what makes it happen.

Some day you will just have to take a vacation in Wisconsin in June and come visit us during strawberry season. Our website is prellwitzproduce.com we have a video of the planter on there.

Chuck

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