NC strawberry farmers tell us how drought and heat are hurting their crops
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- North Carolina strawberry farmers opened the season amid a statewide drought.
- The heat has caused some strawberry crops to ripen faster than normal.
- Raleigh and other cities implemented water restrictions while drought persists.
The acre pond Darin Jones uses to irrigate his strawberries is about 3.5 feet lower than normal for this time of year.
“One good thunderstorm will fill it back up, and then I’ll be okay for a while,” said Jones, owner of DJ’s Berry Patch in Apex. “And if the heat lays off, I won’t have to water as much. But with it 90-95 degrees, then it just takes a lot of water during the heat of the day to cool down the plants.”
North Carolina strawberry farmers, like Jones, are opening for the season in the midst of a state-wide drought. Some cities, like Raleigh, have implemented water restrictions, and the Climate Prediction Center is forecasting the drought to remain throughout much of North Carolina through July, according to the U.S. Seasonal Drought Outlook released this week.
“If it goes another two weeks without any rain to fill my pond back up, I’ll be real nervous,” Jones said. “But right now, I’m good for a little while longer.”
Too much rain can be worse than not enough
Strawberries are finicky creatures.
Too much rain and they’ll rot, damaging a crop in an already short harvest season. And farmers who rely on visitors to pick the crops can be discouraged by spring showers.
“I prefer to put water on myself rather than rain, just because of the rot,” said Austin Wrenn, owner of Wrenn’s Farm in Zebulon. “That rain is very detrimental to a fragile berry. So this is not necessarily a bad scenario. However, for all the rest of our crops, it’s not a good thing.”
The heat caused nearly 50% of the strawberry crop to ripen all at once at Wrenn’s Farm, causing the farm to urge people to visit this weekend to help clear the fields.
“We simply cannot keep up with picking,” according to the farm’s Facebook page. “We have worked nonstop for six days. ... We’re not being dramatic, this weekend is critical for us with how fast everything is coming in.”
Wrenns Farm, a third-generation farm producing strawberries and flowers, hasn’t lost more crops than usual because of the heat, but it has been more expensive, Wrenn said.
“It makes us a litlte nervous to think that we’re already having drought issues this early in the season,” he said.
This story was originally published April 17, 2026 at 4:02 PM with the headline "NC strawberry farmers tell us how drought and heat are hurting their crops."
