NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Consumers anxiously awaiting the return of fresh, local strawberries may have to wait a little longer thanks to the excessive rains throughout the region.

The Tennessee Department of Agriculture (TDA) notes strawberries require consistent warm sunshine to ripen and sweeten, and it is not unusual for some farmers to have ripe berries by mid-April in the state. But Mother Nature has had different ideas as to when the harvest will begin this year, as above-normal precipitation has slowed the crop.

“Tennessee’s climate and geography guarantee that berry-picking time will always be a moving target,” said Tammy Algood, TDA produce marketing specialist. “There’s often a month’s variation between strawberry patches in the West Tennessee Delta compared to upper East Tennessee’s mountains, even without dramatic weather events like floods or freezes.”

She said so far, all looks to be in pretty good shape with the crop and it should be ready by the end of April or the first week in May. “If everything comes along the way it is right now, the first week of May is going to be fantastic.”

That is good news, considering last year a portion of the state saw a late freeze which took part of the 2014 strawberry crop. “We’ll take it a little bit later to have a crop, versus no crop at all,” said Algood.

George McDonald, a producer and president of the Tennessee Fruit and Vegetable Assoc., said the weather so far has delayed crop harvesting by about a week so far.

“We’re having issues about getting fungicide on the berries because it’s wet and sloppy weather,” he explained. “But when we get the right kind of weather, we’ll be good to go.”

McDonald added that better weather right now will make a pretty berry and carry them on to maturity. He sells his strawberries through a variety of venues including commissioned salespeople and through groups like FFA that use the sale of strawberries as a fundraiser.

Local strawberries are important to growers as well as consumers in Tennessee – so much that the Pick Tennessee Products initiative, which points customers in the direction of growers and markets, is offering a free smart phone app that lists those growers and markets, along with GPS mapping to those locations.

McDonald thinks the local food movement is going to get even bigger than it is because people want to know where their food is coming from. That should make strawberry growers and consumers happy. In fact, a “Strawberry Days” media event will take place in two locations in the state to help consumers and growers in the upcoming strawberry season.

Algood will conduct a course to include demonstrating proper strawberry-picking, care, storage and preservation techniques, according to information from TDA. The events will take place April 24 at Wagner Berry Farm (John and Martha Wagner, 931-486-0337) in Spring Hill, and April 28 at Falcon Ridge Farm (Ray or Bart Gilmer, 731-658-5200) in Toone.

For more information about Tennessee strawberries, visit www.picktnproducts.org