This week I am

eating strawberries. Not the time of year I usually eat strawberries, of course. My preferred season is November, and because I'm in Melbourne, I like the small strawberries grown in the Yarra Valley. But the strawberries I have been been eating are different. Lovely aroma, great flavour. Thank you to Mecrus.What makes these strawberries different from others? They're the same variety - Albion, the most commonly grown (and eaten) variety in Australia. But they are grown differently. Most strawberries are grown in the open, in big fields, and they are often prone to diseases of various kinds. The strawberries pictured were grown in a big glasshouse, hydroponically, and without the use of pesticides or fungicides because they are grown under a system known as Integrated Pest Management. (With the right nutrition, and controls that include biological controls, such as insect predators to control unwanted insects, pesticides and fungicides may not be necessary.)But most importantly for their flavour, these strawberries are picked when they are ripe.Think about it. If you were a grower, and the weather forecast for the following day was for high winds and high temperatures, you'd pick the berries before that happened, even if they weren't perfectly ripe.Mecrus is the company that grows the berries in Gippsland. It is a large company that deals nationally in minerals, resources, water (an international award for its water re-use, but that's another story), and now agribusiness. Barry Richard, the managing director, says the company's long-term business interest is sustainability."The real difficulty for agribusiness is climate and weather," he says. So they started thinking about protective cropping.Think about it. How do you grow fruit and vegetables in a way that means the crop will not be ruined by any one or combination of the following: hail, storms, flood, fire, heat, frost. At a time when weather events are more severe and unpredictable, our food supplies are looking less secure.He said that Mecrus did a study in 2010 to find opportunities. The two candidates were mushrooms and strawberries. Mushrooms will be a longer story. For the moment, let's focus on strawberries, which they found were the object of consumer disappointment. Consumers grumble a lot about strawberries not tasting the way they used to (in much the same way they complained about tomatoes without flavour).About a year ago they took over old tomato glasshouses in Gippsland and refitted them. There are currently 36,000 strawberry plants, and by the end of this year there will be about twice that number. In four years, there will be considerably more. New varieties will be introduced. They're planting some now, and waiting for some to come out of quarantine. Japan is breeding some excellent strawberries, says Richards. Local prefectures have invested in breeding programs, and will benefit from the commercialistion of the new varieties.Currently, it's Albion, picked three times a week. The brand is Gippsland strawberries, and they are available at the Sandringham Farmers Market http://www.baysidefarmersmarket.com.au/ , which is held on the third Saturday of the month at Trey Bit Reserve, Jetty Road, Sandringham. They are also available from Fruits on High, in High Street, Kew.Anyone interested in stocking them should SMS distributor Wes Arnott, of the Great Australian Mushroom Company, on 0433 889 929, or Jim Fuller 0433 759 833. Or contact Barry Richards on 0409 993 384.