Florida growers increasingly shift to Ember and Encore varieties

Florida’s winter strawberry harvest is underway, with growers in Hillsborough, Manatee, and Polk counties producing fruit across roughly 16,000 acres (6,475 hectares) from December through March. The crop represents about US$500 million in annual statewide production.

Planting took place between late September and late October, and harvesting has now begun, said Vance Whitaker, strawberry breeder and professor of horticultural sciences at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS). Whitaker noted that about 88 per cent of strawberry varieties grown in Florida originate from UF/IFAS breeding programs.

Vance Whitaker

Two recently commercialized UF/IFAS varieties, Ember and Encore, have expanded rapidly. Last season, the two accounted for about 13 per cent of planted acreage. This season, Ember represents 35 per cent and Encore 18 per cent, totaling approximately 53 per cent of Florida’s strawberry acreage. According to Whitaker, these varieties produce strong early yields and show improved flavor, shelf life, and disease resistance compared with older cultivars.

Florida Brilliance is the next most widely planted cultivar, representing about 27 per cent of acreage.

The UF/IFAS strawberry breeding program, established in 1948, has released dozens of cultivars now grown globally. Whitaker said breeders focus on meeting grower and consumer expectations for appearance, texture, and flavor.

Encore variety.

Whitaker also developed a specialty variety known as the pineberry, which is pale in color and has an aroma reminiscent of pineapple. Pineberries are grown on about 325 acres, a level that has remained steady in recent seasons. They are expected to appear again in retail markets carrying Florida strawberries, though volumes remain limited.

Strawberries in retail outlets are generally not marketed by cultivar name, but consumers can identify Florida-grown product through store labeling or by consulting produce managers.

For more information:
University of Florida
Tel: +1 352 392 1365
www.blogs.ifas.ufl.edu Publication date: Thu 4 Dec 2025

Inside the architecture driving real-time fruit supply chain decisions By FreshPlaza

Johan Mostert – DiPAR Systems

Inside the architecture driving real-time fruit supply chain decisions

“Over the last ten to fifteen years, exporters focused mainly on how quickly they could move pallets to market,” says Johan Mostert, managing director of DiPAR Systems. “But that’s changed: with oversupply becoming more common, the real advantage now lies in ensuring that the right carton lands on the right pallet for the right client.”

The recent mandarin season, with its higher-than-normal incidence of peel disorders, illustrates this shift. Producers increasingly need to know which clients tend to claim against a specific defect, what the financial impact has been historically, and whether higher-risk fruit can be identified and rerouted before export.

“This is a deep part of the industry,” he says. “It’s incredibly difficult to systematize, and very few have attempted it at the scale we’re working at.”

For DiPAR Systems, it has taken the form of an extensive, multi-year rewrite of all their agricultural software modules, a project now more than 300,000 logged hours deep, expected to reach roughly half a million hours once every module is completed. He explains that the rewrite began in earnest in 2018 to consolidate legacy systems, eliminate duplication, and bring the entire platform up to modern architectural standards.

Six33 Produce has been running five farms and a pack house for seven years on a single, integrated DataGear® database

DiPAR has been supplying software to packhouses since 2004 and exporters since 1998, later adding quality control, variety evaluation, labour, and wage-tracking components at the industry’s request. They estimate that in some form or other, 20% to 25% of South Africa’s fruit goes through DiPAR’s products; the exact market share is hard to measure.

The new unified platform is called DataGear®, and alongside the major structural modules, it includes new additions such as a forex management component. To support training, Johan and the DiPAR team used modern AI tools to create an internal training assistant, helping DiPAR’s Client Success Team to master and then teach the module efficiently.

“When all modules are complete, this will rank among the largest privately funded Agri-ERP rebuilds in South Africa,” he says. Each module is released first to select early-adopter clients for user acceptance testing. Commercialisation then begins with a small group to allow rapid feedback during stabilisation. Once the module is fully stable, broader client onboarding begins as part of a phased migration.

Exporters at Core Fruit using the latest Stock Planning and Allocations module in DataGear®

From complexity to intelligence
A growing trend in the fruit sector is the use of deep technical data to reduce risk and improve decision-making. DiPAR is leaning into this movement.

One example is cross-referencing specific defects with the historical claims of particular clients, giving exporters a clearer view of risk profiles before they pack a single pallet. For growers, the system can quantify how much a specific defect has cost the farm over multiple seasons, insight previously nearly impossible to extract quickly or consistently.

Food-safety risks can be modelled similarly, and several clients have already used the platform to run mock recalls.

“Our systems collect and track data from pre-commercial variety trials right through to export,” Mostert says. “Once DataGear® has been completed, this end-to-end integration will be available in a single, modular system. For inspection agencies, DataGear® feels like a dedicated inspection tool, yet quality control represents only a small portion of the full platform.”

As vertically integrated producers and exporters adopt more modules, the depth of benchmarking becomes significant. “The system can measure operational aspects previously difficult to quantify, for instance pruning efficiencies, labour performance, varietal behaviour, scouting intelligence and a range of encompassing metrics that influence decisions and therefore the final packouts and grower returns.”

Built in Africa, designed for the world
The expansion of blueberries in Zimbabwe gave DiPAR a foothold in the broader Southern Africa, where large farms are being established at a pace. Due to exchange rate differences, DiPAR’s offering is often substantially more affordable than competing systems, and crucially, the mobile apps are designed to operate fully offline.

Right: The Pest Monitoring module in DataGear® in use at Six33 Produce’s LeArc Farm, Western Cape

“Six33 Produce is in the process of finishing off their seventh season running five farms and a pack house on a single, integrated DataGear® database,” he notes. “They have generated up to 100,000 lines of data in a single day on the app.”

Where connectivity is limited, a daily reality on many farms, DataGear® continues to function without interruption. Some clients also make use of optional offline biometric validation to confirm worker attendance. The system allocates duties, integrates directly with harvesting scales, and feeds the resulting data into labour and wage modules in near real-time.

Despite touching several points of the payroll workflow, DiPAR intentionally avoids the accounting-software space. “We’ve seen farms running three different payroll systems. Our goal isn’t to replace them, but to provide the overarching system that connects everything.”

Safety, audits and future vision
Audits across the value chain, covering farm, packhouse, export, food safety, and more, are increasingly intertwined. This creates a strong need for cross-modular integration so that compliance, traceability, and risk information aren’t trapped in separate systems.

The long-term vision for DataGear® includes additional safety features, such as enforcing post-spray re-entry intervals to prevent accidental exposure for workers, a real challenge in certain crop environments. Similarly, DataGear® aims to integrate receiver requirements, market specifications, consumer preferences, and grower exposure into every allocation decision, with the long-term goal of maximising grower returns while reducing risk.

Among the largest releases, currently in the initial commercialisation phase, is the Stock Planning & Allocations module which is running live at Core Fruit and the Estimates & Planning module which is running live at EXSA and Core Fruit. “Both of these modules represent comprehensive coverage and client configurability, whilst addressing some of the most technically demanding areas of export operations.”

EXSA uses the Estimates & Planning module in their operations

For more information:
Johan Mostert
DiPAR Systems
Tel: +27 82 940 9820
Email: jmostert@dipar.co.za | info@dipar.co.za
www.dipar.co.za

More than 110 strawberry breeding lines in development with Red Sun Farms, Heritable Agriculture, and Consorzio Italiano Vivaisti collaboration by FreshPlaza

Red Sun Farms, Heritable Agriculture, and Consorzio Italiano Vivaisti collaboration

More than 110 strawberry breeding lines in development

Red Sun Farms, Heritable Agriculture, and Consorzio Italiano Vivaisti (CIV) have announced significant progress in their collaborative effort to develop the leading indoor-grown strawberry at the Vineland Research Station facility. This partnership combines CIV’s expertise in strawberry genetics and germplasm, Heritable Agriculture’s AI-driven breeding models, and Red Sun Farms’ indoor growing knowledge to change how premium strawberries are bred and grown.

By using AI simulations to predict crop performance, the partnership is streamlining breeding timelines and optimizing key traits for greenhouse efficiency. This approach lets the team bring high-quality, innovative strawberry varieties to market faster, with growers, consumers, and the environment in mind.

Heritable Agriculture’s predictive AI technology generalizes across species, environments, and traits, making it adaptable to almost any agricultural operation. When paired with Red Sun Farms’ vertically integrated model and CIV’s breeding capabilities, this collaboration sets a new benchmark in indoor fruit innovation.

A key differentiator of this initiative is the early involvement of eight retail partners representing more than eight thousand North American store locations. By bringing retailers into the breeding process from the start, the project connects real consumer insights and market needs with advanced technology, ensuring the varieties developed are optimized not only for performance but also for taste, texture, and shopper appeal.

Last week, retail partners joined the research team at Vineland for an exclusive first look at more than one hundred and ten strawberry breeding lines now in development. Through guided sensory evaluations, partners provided valuable feedback that will help shape the next phase of selection and innovation.

“At Vineland, we’re proud to be at the forefront of horticultural innovation by combining world-class research, advanced technology, and industry collaborations to deliver premium, sustainable strawberries to the consumer,” said Ian Potter, President and CEO, Vineland Research. “It’s been incredible to see this research come to life and be validated directly through customer feedback.”

“We’re bringing AI solutions to indoor growers, beginning with greenhouse strawberries,” added Davide Sosso, CSO at Heritable Agriculture. “This work is setting a new standard for strawberry flavor and quality, which is why retailers were here this week to learn more.”

“For CIV, this collaboration represents an important step in turning our genetic research into real value for the entire supply chain,” said Federico Stanzani, General Manager of CIV. “Providing our germplasm and integrating it with Heritable’s predictive models, Red Sun’s cultivation expertise, and the research capabilities of Vineland Research lets us speed up indoor breeding, optimize key traits, and develop varieties that can excel in greenhouses from the earliest stages. This synergy between advanced genetics, artificial intelligence, and precision growing shows technological potential and delivers results for growers, retailers, and consumers, creating strawberries that are ready for market demands.”

“We are entering a new era of produce development where we no longer have to choose between yield and flavor. This partnership brings together the four pillars of modern agriculture: advanced genetics, predictive AI, precision growing, and direct retail feedback. By aligning these forces from day one, we are creating a feedback loop that has never existed before,” said Paul J Mastronardi, Business Development and Account Manager. “We are effectively reverse engineering the perfect strawberry based on what consumers want, ensuring that when these varieties reach the shelf, they are already proven winners.”

As the project advances, Red Sun Farms, Heritable Agriculture, CIV, and Vineland remain committed to driving sustainable, technology-enabled innovation that improves quality, productivity, and flavor in the strawberry category.

For more information:
Red Sun Farms
Tel.: +1 (519) 712-8493
Email: sales@redsunfarms.com
https://www.redsunfarms.com/

Heritable Agriculture
press@heritable.ag
https://heritable.ag

Consorzio Italiano Vivaisti
Tel.: +39 0533 399431
Email: info@civ.it
www.civ.it Publication date: Tue 2 Dec 2025

Dormancy management for maintaining productivity in winter crop production

Photoperiodic lighting can make a huge difference in strawberry production. This article is timely in the season you need to consider extension lighting or night interruption lighting to improve the productivity of your strawberry plants.

Off-season greenhouse strawberry plants are often planted in late summer to start producing fruits in October or November. However, sometimes after the first flush of production, plants may go into a slow growing phase, not producing as many flowers and fruits and not extending leaves. Overall morphology is rosette-like with dark green leaves with short petioles. This is because plants are getting in the dormancy phase as a response to the light environment.

Figure 1. ‘Tochiotome’ strawberry plants showing dormancy symptoms in early January (left). The same plants recovering from the symptoms after three weeks under night interruption lighting (right).

Dormancy in strawberry is induced under short-day conditions when average temperature is greater than 15 °C (Sønsteby and Heide, 2021). Many growers and researchers may have misunderstood that low temperature is part of the stimuli for entering plants into dormancy. In fact, while short-day conditions are considered as the primary factor inducing dormancy in many species, some species such as apple and pear require low temperature for entering dormancy regardless of photoperiod (Heide and Prestrud, 2005). Strawberry plants do not exhibit ‘absolute dormancy’ as their growth is not completely ceased: the reason why the status in strawberry is called ‘semi-dormancy’. The state of semi-dormancy is characterized by reduced growth while still retaining the capacity of growth when transferred to long days. In contrast, plants in the state of absolute dormancy cannot be overcome by photoperiod alone.

When plants start showing low productivity associated with the typical morphology of dormancy status, long-day lighting has been shown as an effective way to overcome the dormancy symptoms. As good news, this photoperiodic response requires only a small amount of light (a minimum of 2 µmol m⁻² s⁻¹) to apply as extension lighting or night interruption lighting. In the Netherlands and Belgium, intermittent cyclic lighting may also be common. This practice in Europe typically follows the winter-resting period of the traditional “double-cropping” system in greenhouses. Specific application methods of dormancy control lighting are shown in Table 1.

Most greenhouse strawberry growers in North America grow cultivars typically considered as facultative long-day plants. Because supplemental photosynthetic lighting is commonly provided for winter strawberry production in greenhouses, creating long-day conditions is common, and therefore dormancy would rarely become an issue. However, when greenhouse production occurs in areas where supplemental photosynthetic lighting is not necessary in winter (e.g., Southwestern U.S., Mexico), strawberries may be exposed to dormancy-inducing short-day conditions. In addition, some growers may wish to grow short-day cultivars for specific traits, such as unique flavor and fruit color, and may apply short-day conditions to assure continuous flower induction. Sensitivity to dormancy-inducing short-day conditions seems to be cultivar-specific (Lin et al., 2025b). Therefore, photoperiodic lighting needs to be carefully applied over short-day cultivars so that it would not inhibit flowering. If cultivars of interest are known to be sensitive to dormancy-inducing short-day conditions, it is recommended to start photoperiodic lighting in late October, as indicated by a compendium of strawberry cultivation in Japan (Nobunkyo, 2008).

Aside from the traditional approach of lighting up strawberry, some research has been conducted to develop alternative means to manage dormancy in strawberry production under short-day conditions. At Ohio State University, it was demonstrated that supplemental far-red
light could prevent dormancy under short-day conditions (Lin et al., 2025a). To implement, more research is needed to optimize the far-red intensity and application methods. Gibberellic acid (GA) application has been also practiced in other countries as alternative approach; however, GA-based growth regulators have not been registered for strawberry fruit production in North America.

For more information:
Chieri Kubota
Email: kubota.10@osu.edu
Yiyun Lin
Email: lin.2266@osu.edu
Pooja Tripathi
Email: Tripathi.78@osu.edu

American Floral Endowment
Tel.: +1 (703) 838-5211
afe@endowment.org
www.endowment.org Publication date: Mon 1 Dec 2025