To remain competitive in the strawberry industry UF/IFAS scientists searched far and wide to come up with a new variety and the 'Florida Beauty' seems to be the latest.
The variety is a cross between the UF/IFAS-bred ‘Florida Radiance’ and an Australian selection that also had some UF/IFAS background, according to Vance Whitaker, an Associate Professor of Horticultural Sciences at the UF/IFAS Gulf Coast Research and Education Center in Balm.
Seven different Florida growers are testing the new variety this season, putting about 20,000 plants on trial. The variety was also tested in limited numbers by Commercial growers in Florida.
“Growers are interested that it can be planted earlier than the current varieties,” Whitaker said. “It is more suited to the early part of the planting period, the last week of September. It starts producing fruit quickly in early to mid-November and fruits consistently thereafter without becoming overly vegetative, despite the high temperatures in Central Florida in September and October.”
