Unlike tobacco, this unregulated cash crop developed rapidly and, from 1945 onwards, it was no longer grown as an allotment in the home garden. The first strawberry plantations were planted on clearings of chestnut coppice ravaged by ink disease between Périgueux, Vergt and Villamblard.
Strawberry growing evolved rapidly from a farmhouse crop in the open field with mulch to a speculative monoculture requiring heavy investment for tunnels and then greenhouses, plastic film, irrigation, treatments and packaging for export in the 1980s in the Vergt region. The strawberry growers thus organised themselves into cooperatives as early as 1959 to facilitate marketing to Bordeaux, Nantes, Paris and then Germany and England. The department thus became the leading producing region in the early 1970s.
Illustrations :
– Clearing_Clearing_Agricultural_RevolutionDordogne_Pijassou_1965
– Fraisiculture_RegardsRevolutionagricultureDordogne_Pijassou_1965
– Advertisement for Strawberry_Gardens and Basketscourses_1935
– img224_OdetteCoustillas_La Gabouille_Beauronne_April1990
– img225_PaulCoustillas_La Gabouille_Beauronne_April1990
– img226_Odette CoustillasaumarchédeMontpon_avril1990