By TIM ALEXANDER

Illinois Correspondent

EAST PEORIA, Ill. — There is not a lot happening at Schaer’s Country Market in rural East Peoria these days. During June, what owner Larry Schaer refers to as the area’s “last U-pick strawberry orchard” is usually abuzz with families combing over rows of juicy-red Allstar, Annapolis, and Honeoye strawberries, baskets in hand.

Not this year. A recent visit to Schaer’s found the popular fruit, vegetable, and food market as barren of customers as its four acres of plants are of strawberries. Schaer said an unproductive growing season has left the family business bereft of sweet, succulent, profitable berries for the fourth time in the past four decades.

“Strawberries are our biggest revenue producer. The rest is supplementary,” he said, adding that his and wife Bonnie’s U-pick market is the “last one left” from as many as nine such orchards to populate the Peoria area since the 1980s.

“This is the fourth wipeout of our crop in the past 40 years; that’s 10 percent of the time. Strawberries are a perishable crop, and there is too much risk. You have to make a fairly sizable investment before you begin putting any money in the bank,” Schaer said.

Bonnie said she will be praying for a good year for their perennial crop of strawberries in 2020; meanwhile, the Schaers are spotlighting their many handcrafted flower arrangements, area-made spices, jams, salsas, and relishes, and non-food items as they brace for a year without profits from their signature strawberries.

The problem is not confined to Tazewell County and the Peoria area. Mike Roegge, a retired University of Illinois extension educator from Quincy in Adams County, reported that strawberry bud loss is occurring due to prolonged winter-like temperatures and weather conditions.

“Our strawberry crop this year is the worst we’ve ever had,” Roegge said in an email. “We had a low temperature in January of negative-13 degrees. A few days prior to that we had rain, which melted the 5 to 6 inches of protective snow and left a half-inch to an inch of ice on the covers.

“That ice radiated that cold temperature down to the crown, which killed the buds. I’m estimating we have about a 10 percent crop.”

Near-constant spring rainfall caused a larger than usual percentage of anthracnose on some of the surviving berries, Roegge explained. In addition, a homeowner near Monmouth in Warren County told the retired educator she has big strawberry plants this year – but not many berries.

Larry Stratton, an extension Master Gardener based in Peoria, confirmed the berry kill-off was likely caused by the cold and wet late winter and early spring that plagued farmers across the Midwest.

“It was not conducive to getting blooms on the strawberries in the first place, and pollinators to do the pollination. Very few strawberries were set, and they didn’t mature well because of the cold weather. This is why we are experiencing a deficit of strawberries right now,” he said.

Strawberries grown for commercial production include June-bearing and ever-bearing varieties. Most producers, like the Schaers, elect to plant June-bearing varieties that produce a fast, abundant crop from late May into June. Ever-bearing varieties, which do not produce as bountiful a yield as June-bearers, continue to produce small, indeterminate amounts of fruit into September. Hybridization has led to larger, more succulent June-bearing strawberries that are often grown commercially.

“A commercial business like Schaer’s, where you need to have a large and abundant crop ready in June, benefits the most from raising June-bearing varieties,” explained Stratton. He said a recent streak of warmer, drier weather in the central Illinois region came “too little and too late” to save June strawberries.

Consumers will have to settle for strawberries brought in from other areas this year, or prepare to pay a premium for those that survived the winter and spring, the garden expert cautioned.

“I think their price might go up due to the lack of crop here in central Illinois. The crop is just not there, so we will be getting strawberries from southern Illinois, Missouri, and places further south that didn’t get quite the rain we did. I also think that wild, or woodland, strawberries will be in higher demand this year,” he surmised.

With a return to largely favorable weather next spring, producers can likely expect a bountiful 2020 strawberry harvest, Stratton predicted.