Does the Future of Strawberry Farming Involve Steam?

Longtime strawberry farmer Rod Koda has rows of plants on his California farm that are still producing fruit well after the harvest would typically end. The fields have produced nearly twice the amount of organic strawberries this year as other plots thanks to steam, he said. Steam has been used for decades in greenhouses, and researchers in California have been working to adapt the technology to the fields where strawberries, one of the state's key crops, are grown near the Pacific Coast. Koda's plots were treated with steam before he planted his berries as part of a project aimed at finding an alternative to chemical fumigants used to kill soil-borne diseases and weeds. "It's a very noticeable difference," Koda tells the AP.

Rick Tomlinson, president of the California Strawberry Commission, said researchers have been working on steam for more than a decade. Strawberry growers have long relied on chemical fumigants because the fruit is grown close to the ground and is soft and fleshy. Using a machine to inject steam into the soil before planting can kill key soil-borne diseases and weeds and improve crop productivity, said Jenny Broome, a USC Santa Cruz researcher working on the project. Steam might also work on fields used for lettuce, carrots, and other high-yield crops, she said. A challenge is making steam cost-effective for farmers, and proponents of the technology are trying to speed up the machines used in the process so they can cover more terrain faster.