Traditional strawberry season had already been extended from June to late August with the introduction of day-neutrals several years ago.

Day-neutral strawberries will continue to set and ripen fruit all summer until a hard frost puts them into dormancy. The term refers to the light sensitivity of the variety.

But Dan and Jeff Tigchelaar are about to revolutionize that extension by planting day-neutral strawberry plants in the fall rather than the spring.

“This helps to create a smaller plant, which allows for

better-quality strawberries,” says Jeff Tigchelaar, 38. “The biggest improvement that we found is that we can get excellent quality, we can go to market earlier and we can fill gaps in our production cycle, which is exactly what our customers are looking for.”

The production system involves the use of floating row covers to promote late plant development and flower bud initiation for an early spring harvest.

“We are already picking full time,” says Tigchelaar, and they have been prior to the Victoria Day weekend.

He and his brother Dan, 43, are second-generation farmers. Their Dutch grandparents came to Canada in 1929.

Their father purchased the family’s first farm in Binbrook, Ont., south of Hamilton, in 1966. It was the first pick-your-own operation in the area that featured berries, apples and vegetables.

Then the brothers bought acreage in Vineland, Ont., in 1995 and Tigchelaar says they now have four farms – the others are in St. Catharines and nearby Jordan Station. The latter still grows strawberries using the traditional matted-row technique and remains a pick-your-own operation.

Tigchelaar says that the move to Niagara was a dream he and Dan had because they wanted to take advantage of the sandy soil, moderate micro-climate and to grow day-neutral strawberries.

“I definitely think that this is probably the future of commercial production for strawberries,” says Dan Tigchelaar. “When you see the quality difference and what it has enabled us to do in terms of that, we don’t feel there’s a comparison to our old way of doing things.

“There is still a place for the old way, and for us as well, but this improves our growing substantially.”

The innovation has paid off for the brothers.

In mid-April, they won the Ontario Minister’s Award for Agri-Food Innovation at the Premier’s Conference on Agri-Food. The award was $50,000.