Most strawberry growers around Iowa are reporting a bumper crop this year.
The Iowa Department of Agriculture says that berries are ripening ahead of schedule, making now the ideal time to pick.
Sheril Getting has a strawberry patch in Sanborn, in northwest Iowa. She believes this year will yield her biggest crop yet, despite less than ideal weather conditions.
Getting says the biggest problem on her farm is high winds, "like 40 to 60 miles an hour day after day, just whipping the leaves and beating the berries."
Some strawberry growers in other parts of the state say their crop would’ve been better with a little more rain.
Getting says there’s a reason there aren’t a lot of strawberry patches in Iowa — it takes a lot of work. "Planting strawberries, down on your knees setting the plants, and then the picking process, and hoeing day after day after day, keeping the weeds out is a big, big problem," she says.
State Ag officials say four different varieties of strawberries are grown in Iowa. They do not have an exact count of how many strawberry growers there are in the state.