Organic strawberry fields are synthetic fumigant-free, but the nurseries supplying their starter strawberries use toxic methyl bromide, and there are no organic nursery alternatives. Every year, nurseries feel pressure to eliminate the fumigant’s use but, they say, there are no effective alternatives.

“I think the nursery part of it is probably one of the biggest concerns at this point to make sure we have a clean [plant] stock,” said Norm Groot, executive director of Farm Bureau Monterey. “If we get some sort of disease or pest in the nurseries themselves, then it will be very hard to control it out in the field.”

Because the poisonous methyl bromide breaks down the ozone layer, which acts as the atmosphere’s UV-radiation shield, an international treaty was signed to phase out the toxic fumigant’s use. In California, strawberry growers aim to be methyl bromide-free by 2017.

Nursery stock is exempt from the ban every year because there are no alternatives nearly as effective, said Jim Smith, senior deputy Agricultural Commissioner for Siskiyou County, where strawberry plant stock is the No. 1 crop.

“But it’s a political hot potato. Every year, the committee meets to negotiate and they are under a lot of pressure to get rid of that exemption,” Smith said.

Strawberry farmers sow their fields with plug plants, which are little strawberry starter kits of roots, stems and leaves grown in nurseries. To comply with strict regulations requiring soil to be certified free of all diseases and pests before selling and exporting the plant plugs, they are treated with a methyl bromide- chloropicrin mixture, Smith said.

“The elimination of methyl bromide is creating some real hardships,” he said. “Nothing has replaced it, even though they’ve tried, that has the same level of effectiveness and same level of safety.”

Organic farmers shun synthetic fumigants for their fields, but they are forced to use the conventional plant stock.

“Organic growers have no other options,” said Lisa Bunin, organic policy director for the Center of Food Safety. “The government has put zero dollars into funding organic as an alternative to methyl bromide [in nurseries].”

Bunin collaborates with organic nursery Greenheart Farms in Arroyo Grande to test organic strawberry plugs planted on farms in Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. The plugs have no potential for soil-borne pathogens because they grow in volcanic rock, said Bunin.