Hail, no! Storm damages strawberry crop at Troyer's Farm in Waynesboro
WAYNESBORO — Kenneth Troyer unloads boxes of strawberries from the back of a golf cart Wednesday afternoon. There aren't many, but there should be.
His farm, Troyer's Farm, outside of Waynesboro is the place to go if you want strawberries.
It should be high time for harvest, but a hail storm that hit the Shenandoah Valley April 26 destroyed the majority of his crop, leaving him with limited beat-up berries and a whole lot of cleanup.
Troyer had been hopeful for the season. He knew there was a possibility of a berry storage due to disease and weather, so he prepared. He planted an extra 10,000 plants.
"We had a really nice crop of berries this year," he said. "We had lost very little for freeze."
He knew the weather was predicting rain, so he didn't want to cover his crops.
"You don't want to cover them more than you have to because it could bring diseases to the fruit," he said.
Usually, you'd want to harvest before the rain, but in this case, the crop wasn't ready. Fruit had just started to form, but it was still a few weeks before you could pick.
What he didn't expect was hail.
"We had up to quarter-sized hail," he said.
Clusters of flowers and stems standing upright were sliced in half once the hail hit.
"What would happen is hail would hit it at the lower part of the stem and just cut it," he said. "It just looked like somebody took a brush hog out in the field. It was just unbelievable."
He doesn't know if he'll be able to cover his costs now. Luckily, he does have other crops that could tide him over like sweet corn and other produce from the farm.
"Strawberry season always gives me a little boost for the rest of the year," he said. "This year ... well ..."
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Now he's harvesting what's left and they don't look real pretty. They have pock marks from where the hail hit them.
"Our fruit is now ripening and there is very little fruit that doesn't have any damage. And some of it is really bad," he said.
Troyer says those damaged berries don't taste any different; in some cases he's found they may taste sweeter.
He's had Troyer's Farm since 2008 and he's never seen anything like this.
"I've always heard you never want to hail," he said. "Now I know why, because it almost takes you out."
The farm has three acres of strawberries and Troyer estimates they've lost about 30,000 pounds of strawberries. A good year, they yield about 40,000 pounds. Each year, he replants due to disease and for the size of the fruit. If he carries the plant over to the next year, the berry would only be half the size.
He also has a slug problem. Replanting is a way to abate that.
They've just started harvesting earlier this week, and they're not sure if they will have people out to pick their own like usual.
"Generally by now we would already have the public in picking and I don't know if we can even let the public in to pick because there's so few berries," he said. "The last of the month we won't have any berries. The first of June, I've got blooms coming out and some fruit forming. So we'll have some coming out."
Troyer said customers may have the opportunity to come out and pick this season, but it will be limited and he will post on social media when that's possible.
Troyer's Fruit and Produce Farm is located at 66 Conner Rd. outside of Waynesboro. For more information visit the farm on Facebook.
Laura Peters is the trending topics reporter at The News Leader. Have a news tip on local trends or businesses? Or a good feature? You can reach reporter Laura Peters (she/her) at lpeters@newsleader.com. Follow her @peterslaura. Subscribe to The News Leader at newsleader.com.
This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Waynesboro farm's strawberry crop destroyed by hail storm
