The quality of the Diamante strawberry crop was top of the list of priorities on Hargreaves Plants production manager Garth Baxter recent week-long trip to the firm’s strawberry plant nurseries in California.

On his return, he said: “We have very large sales of the variety Diamante on the books and, in line with company policy, needed to be sure the quality is up to our customer’s expectations”.

Diamante, bred by the University of California, is a popular everbearer preferred at this time of the year by most supermarket outlets and increasingly grown in the UK. Hargreaves, the south Lincolnshire-based soft fruit plant propagator, holds a special license for the sale of the variety.

Baxter added: “Plants were being lifted and graded whilst I was there and I was able to ensure that ours were stored separately prior to despatch in early February. We visit our contract fields in Holland weekly and California is checked out too, including transfer of regular digital pictures and plant analysis reports.

Hargreaves Plants believes it subjects its propagated or contract grown plants to more inspections, than any other UK supplier, he added. “We have seen serious increases in diseases in plants grown in Italy Holland and the US, and we will go to any length to ensure that if they [the infected plants] are imported, Hargreaves has nothing to do with them. Growers need to be very careful of plant origin, whatever the variety. To further control quality Hargreaves is expanding its UK production capacity significantly in the next two years,” said Baxter.

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