Strawberries are the biggest cash crop on the Central and South Coasts.
Now, a university in the region has received a major grant to try to identify types of strawberry plants which are more disease resistant.
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Strawberry Center will share a $4.5 million dollar federal grant with a team of other university based scientists from California and Florida to do the research.
Cal Poly’s agricultural college, which is the parent of its strawberry center, will get about a half million dollars of the funding. The idea is to try to accelerate the development of disease resistant strawberry plants.