By Anya Stansell, Harvest New York
Several new varieties of Junebearing strawberries have become available since 2020. We will review how these varieties compare to our established selection of varieties.
A survey conducted by Dr. Kristen Park of the Cornell Food Industry Management Program found that the most popular strawberry varieties amongst New York growers are: ‘Jewel’, ‘AC Wendy’, ‘Earliglow’ and ‘Flavorfest’. These are followed by ‘AC Valley Sunset’, ‘Galletta’ tied with ‘Malwina’, and a tie between ‘Cabot’ and the dayneutral ‘Albion’. (See Table 1)
Table 1: Results of the strawberry variety survey as conducted by Dr. Kristen Park in 2025
The new strawberry varieties available all offer improved firmness and produce fruit during the typical Junebearing strawberry season.
Table 2: New strawberry varieties
Andrew Jamieson, strawberry breeder working for Agriculture and Agri-Foods Canada, has released 3 more strawberry varieties: ‘AAC Audrey,’ ‘AAC Evelynn’, and ‘AAC Kate’. His program has also released the well-known varieties ‘Cabot’, ‘AC Wendy’ and ‘AC Valley Sunset’, The new releases have an extra ‘A’ in the name to stand for “Agriculture and Agri-Foods”.
In the press release, ‘AAC Audrey’ is described as having “…medium yields, medium-large berries with good firmness and good shelf life, and a consistent conic shape.” This variety is ripe shortly after ‘Galletta’ and ‘Annapolis’, and before ‘Jewel’.
The same source described ‘AAC Evelynn’ as having “…medium-high yields, large berries with good firmness, medium shelf-life, and a wedge to conic shape.” Although the press release states that this variety is ripe in the mid-to-late season, growers in the Ontario region and the Northeastern United States have found it to ripen similarly to ‘AAC Audrey’.
Finally ‘AAC Kate’ is a mid-late season strawberry that some growers in the Northeast may find as a good replacement for ‘AC Valley Sunset’. The press release describes it as having “…medium yields, large berries with good firmness, medium shelf-life, and a mostly conic shape.” The flavor is milder and blander than ‘AC Valley Sunset’, but the improved firmness can make it a suitable late-season strawberry for shipping to markets.
The United States Department of Agriculture’s Strawberry Breeder, Dr. Kim Lewers, has released two new varieties, ‘Keepsake’ and Cordial’. Dr. Lewers’ program is known for the widely grown variety ‘Flavorfest’.
‘Keepsake’ was named for its high firmness and improved shelf life—after 2 weeks in cold storage, only 29% of the fruit was showing signs of degradation, compared to 81% of ‘Chandler’. This is a mid-season variety that yields on average 1.3lbs of fruit per plant, which is slightly lower than ‘Flavorfest’. It is closely related to ‘Flavorfest’ and has a similar juicy texture.
‘Cordial’ is a late-season strawberry variety that also offers the improved shelf life and fruit firmness found in ‘Keepsake’. Like ‘AAC Kate’, ‘Cordial’ may be a good alternative to ‘AC Valley Sunset’ for growers who want late-season fruit to hold up well in shipping. This is a very high-yielding cultivar, producing an average of 1.7lbs per plant in the development trials.