Adam Pressley, Pressley Farms
Strawberry Production Expansion
Grant Award: $6,000
The Pressley family started growing strawberries in 2015 with 500 plugs, ramping up their crop to about 3,500 plants on 0.17 acres by 2019. For the 2021-2022 season, they have allocated 0.6 acres to increasing production with the planned purchase of 6,000 plugs and a machine that can create raised beds and lay both drip line and plastic in the same pass.
The new equipment will eliminate their current time-consuming, manual field-preparation processes and can be implemented with some of their other crops, including tomatoes, cut flowers, beets and winter squash. In the 2019-2020 growing season, 95% of their strawberry harvest was sold via Facebook to retail customers who picked up at the farm.
The expansion will increase revenue by allowing the farm to meet growing customer demand with its wholesale accounts and at the Mills River Farmers Market and Hendersonville City Market.
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