 Okay. Good morning, everyone. I just wanted to share with you some strawberry updates from our trials in this year. Let's see if I can advance my slide here. So first of all, I want to talk about the current variety trial performance in here in Central Alabama. And next I'll talk about the overall performance over the last five years since I've been doing these trials. And also we'll talk about some tips on preparations for next season. Many of you strawberry growers know that preparations have really all already begun. I'll be touching on some of those, some of those activities. And I'll finish up with some varieties to watch. I say varieties is actually just one, but I'll be talking about that a variety to watch other than the ones that I'm presenting here today. I've mentioned last in our last presentation, talked about how there is an increased interest in strawberry production and strawberry consumption. The desire to consume fresh grown strawberries just continues to increase throughout the state and actually throughout the region in the country, primarily because well for flavor, but also for the health benefits that they're afforded by the strawberry. But growers are, they are having a bit of a time growing them like they can. This year you may not know it among some of the growers. This was a pretty good year this year. But it is that they're known to be too difficult to grow often, and it is an expensive startup. And it's essentially a gamble. You really oftentimes you're not really sure what you're going to get. So this is so variety trials are our paramount really when we when we try to think about some of the things that we could do to to assist growers, and that's just conducting variety trials, this variety trials are the first line of defense when it comes to improving variety for the strawberry production or production of any crop. So first of all, I'll start with the current variety performance. And again, this is here in central Alabama. And these are the varieties. These are all of the varieties that I've trialed over the years, but these are the ones that have essentially made the cut over the years. So, I'll be honest, the only day neutral that variety that I'll be talking about. Camarosa I have that in red here and that's because it is the market standard. Also a upcoming variety, Camino Real Chandler I have that in bold print here because that used to be the market standard, but it was sort of edged out by Camarosa, and also Ruby Jim. It's a variety. There's another variety that is growing in popularity. And this. So we'll start with total marketable yield. And this is the total marketable yield is the the marketable yield across the entire season. And you can see that Camino Real and Chandler are the two most comparable to Camarosa in this trial for this year in 2021. And Ruby June and Albion are just lagging a little bit behind here in this season. And Ruby June is performed more comparable to Camarosa I'd say over the some of the years, and actually Ruby June and Albion are two of the most to the best tasting varieties that we've trialed. So there's people from all over grows from all over get comments from from consumers they tell them that Ruby June is a really great tasting variety. Next we'll look at the individual berry weight, another important component or a characteristic of a berry, and we can see that this year in 2021 that Albion and Ruby June were the two largest berries and they a little bit larger than Camarosa. Camino Real is noted to have a very large berry. We did see that this year, but in the field but I think what we might have seen is just more, it probably has more of a uniform berry size. Because I really expected it to be a little bit larger than it did after it's shut out in the end. Another component that we want to look at is the actual plant size and Camarosa is known to have a large plant. Also Chandler is as well. Ruby June, as we can see has a large plant but one thing I've noticed about it is that it has it has a tendency to produce these really large leaves. And so and I think that may be one of the things that adds to the, to the size makes it a little more comparable to Chandler and Camarosa. Camino Real was a bit compact in our producing compact plants in our trials this year and is well below the average. Also number of runners or Stolans. This is a benefit if you have a life like you have a cultivar that has large runners, a large number of runners. This could be a benefit if you were in matted row production where the where the continued production of the planting is driven by runners and in the production of daughter plants. The matted row system though as you know has been replaced by the the annual plastic culture system which is as the name suggests it is a annual system matted row is a more of a perennial system that lasts about five, five to six years or as long as five to six years. And so that it's a little bit more permanent and it is driven as I said by the production of runner plants. So in an annual plastic culture system that the ability to produce high numbers of runners is not necessarily a benefit but more of a detriment. And in the case if you are producing plants, the variety that produces a high number of runners and daughter plants that that would also be a benefit. But as we can see that communal real and Ruby June this is the, we have got less than a less than a runner on each one of these less than a runner per plant. I've seen some years that that have been higher than this and it really depends on, I think it really depends on the time of the year or the time of the season that they're, this is being sampled. So look at the five year average for a variety performance, again in central Alabama. And we'll start off again with marketable yield and this is the average five year average of marketable yield as you can see camera oceans camera roses still the number one cultivar, followed by communal real and Ruby June so Ruby June. communal real is that does do some does produce a marketable yield that is a bit more comparable to camera Rosa. And both of these can mean or real and Ruby June are growing in popularity. And again Ruby June has had a really good, really great flavor. And this is total production and in total production we includes it's a combination of marketable yield and cold fruit. So we're looking at the entire production of entire fruit production of the variety and and as you can see it's following a similar trend here. Now we'll look at cold fruit production and this is a this is an important variety of important trade to follow because having to pick out cold fruit when you're when you're producing this is really an issue with some some growers there. This is not really there. It's not really the best thing that they, not the most exciting thing that they would like to like to do and producing and having to call out fruit pick out the cold fruit in their in their in production. We can see that Ruby June is among the lowest call for product producers as well as communal real. So that could be a really good benefit for the for these two varieties and make them even more popular. This year, some variety some growers had to produce communal real had to grow community real because there was a shortage of camera Rosa. And they were really pleased with it with the outcome and they got a lot of comments compliments from consumers. So, I know of at least a couple of operations that are going again with communal real by choice this year, because they had such a great year last year. Now soluble solids and this is one of the components of taste, as you can see. And as I mentioned, Ruby June and Albion were to to the most tasty or the two most tasty berries in the entire trial over the years. And we see Ruby June is comparable to Chandler and camera Rosa in terms of soluble solids. Albion is a bit a little bit efficient here and soluble solids or a little bit lower than some of the others. And that just goes to show that sweetness isn't the only component of flavor there are some flavor volatiles that that come into play when we're talking about the flavor overall flavor of the berry and both the Ruby June and Albion certainly have those to their benefit. And we can see communal real is produced the lowest number of soluble solids or sugars. That has been a comment that a lot of growers have had about communal real. And it's one reason why people won't. Some people won't plan it, because of the sugars is known to have a low soluble solids count and low flavor, but that wasn't the case this year. And what we're finding is that is that is if communal real can be harvested later and allowed to turn dark dark red and that is it's that is what it was a bread to do is being picked when it is really red. Now that's one of the flavors that it's highest in this in this case now overall there. There's not the correlation between flavor and the deep redness that one might think at least according to the literature, but in some cases like to me in the case of communal real if it is allowed to stay on the plant when it is a deep red that is the best time to to harvest it. Okay, so we're going to next we're looking at individual fruit weight for berries and again Albion and communal real where the two largest of what along with Ruby June, they were the largest berries and they were a gram, a gram heavier than cameras. Okay, so this brings us to preparations for next season. And I just created a table here, some of the main activities during this the preparation, and this is not etched in stone. This is in its, and a lot of this is just going to really depend on the operation and what the operation is able to do. And I have here some of the highlights though are ordering plants and I think this is really important you want to be sure to order the plants. You want to select a, a nursery to order your plants and you want to find out when when they offer their plants for sale. And that's somewhere between June and in July. And so as soon as those plants are available you should go ahead and place your order. And a lot of the operations and maybe all of the operations require a certain amount of certain amount of the charge up front. And also be sure to soil test well in advance because if you need a, if you have a, a line requirement of your or if your pH is low, then you're going to need to add lines of the soil to raise the pH and that's going to require several weeks or months to and for that for a reaction to take place to raise the pH, your soil pH. So you want to be sure to have this done in plenty of time ahead of planning. Now, planning is going to depend on the time, your location in the state, and I have here anywhere from late September to mid October. The north, the northern locations in the state and central locations in the state. You want to plan even even the Southerns. You want to plant early October. You get some of the northern locations you may be able to get away with planning a little bit earlier late September. But you definitely want to be you want to plant for five mid October. Planning date, the number of operations they will plant and they'll put the row cover down and may plan a little bit late. And I'll put the row cover down in order to stimulate some more growth to build up heat units and stimulate some more growth before the winter temperatures set in. And this is a, and this does work, but it doesn't work like planning on time. It's just really no nothing, nothing beats planning at on time right now. And also if you put down pre or pre immersion herbicides you want to do that at bed formation and prior to laying of your plastic and installation of your, your rope, your drip tape. And also see your, you want to put down your, your ryegrass seed to prevent our erosion and some of the soil from coming from away from the sides of your, of your plastic, so that the plastic can be ripped up easily by winds. And so that's, that could be a pretty devastating thing to happen, high winds come through and then just rip up all your plastic from your, your planting beds. So, you do want to plant some rope ryegrass to to keep the plastic down and prevent erosion. But you want to do this before you punch holes for planting, but you don't want to get any of the rice seed in in the planting holes. So all of these, these things pre, adding your pre immersion herbicides forming your bed, laying your plastic, applying your, your, your ryegrass seed. You want to do that about three to four weeks prior to planning to allow to be able to so that you can allow So the pre plant herbicides and other components may not harm your plants when planting. Okay, and we have here, I have a source, I've got sources of plant materials for plug plants, some of these producers also produce bear root plants. And so, and some may only produce bear root plants. And that, and that also may depend on the time of the year, whether or not they plant plug or, or, or bear root plants. And most, I know a lot of us got our varieties from from Jimmy Witt. And unfortunately, Jimmy Witt passed away this year of last year. And so, a lot of us, it sort of left the void and how and the places where we can get plants. So here's a list of plant material, a list of producers of plants, some here in Alabama, and a lot of producers out of state. Okay, so these are some things to remember. You want their plug plants or bear root plants when you place your order. And this picture here is a bear root plant. When you get your bear root plants you want to make sure that they're nice healthy roots, and make sure that you're getting from a, a reputable nursery. They're oftentimes they have a minimum order. And as I mentioned earlier that you may be required to pay upfront. And also, as I mentioned earlier, do not delay in planning, if you can all, if you can at all help it, place it as soon as, as you can as soon as the nursery offers plants for sale. And again, I have varieties to watch and have varieties listed which really just a single variety. And that is from terrace from terrace is a produces a very large berry. It had an average berry size of about 32 grams. This is a variety that is produced among from California. This yield doesn't really seem that high here but in the, in the season that it was produced it, but this was the highest year, elder. It has a maturity that's, that's a little later than Camarosa, and, and obviously has a larger berry size, and the flavors, it's pretty good, pretty good flavor is sweet and a little bit tart. What I have here that the red color seems a little bit fluorescent in in person it sort of does the for lack of a better word that it sort of did have a fluorescent red color just a really, really attractive large conical shaped berry. So some points to remember from all of this, Camino Rial and Ruby June were the most comparable to Camarosa. Camarosa and Camino, Camino Rial and Ruby June produced large berries and few runners. Camino Rial produces a more compact plant. In order on time, be sure to test early and, and have make sure you have timely bed preparation and timely planting. And so that's the end of my presentation. I'll take any questions.