JCLM Farming: Leading the way in strawberry plant production

JCLM Farming has established itself as a key player in strawberry plant propagation, supplying around 10 per cent of Australia’s strawberry plants. 

The farm, run by Jack Beattie and his wife Lisa on the Derwent River at Ouse, supplies high quality strawberry nursery plants to farms around the country and also produces lucerne and grass silage.

Originally from the UK, Jack grew up in a cattle farming family before moving to Tasmania where the Beattie family ran a dairy farm in Bushy Park. 

However, when the dairy farm was sold, Jack was presented with an opportunity to take the business in a new direction.

The Beattie’s purchased the land where JCLM Farming now operates in 2015 with plans to vertically integrate their milk processing business. 

However, just as they were starting to develop the farm, a company from Queensland approached them with an interest in growing strawberry nursery plants in Tasmania. Instead of selling the land, Jack and Lisa decided to rent part of it out to the company, providing labour and service provision before eventually taking on some of the operations themselves.

At the time, Jack had no experience in horticulture, but he embraced the steep learning curve.

“The relationship evolved to the point we ended up getting our own licence to produce genetics from the Australian Strawberry Breeding Program and the business has really grown from there.”

“I won’t say it’s been easy but we’re lucky that we’ve had a very strong base of partners with us in the industry who’ve worked hard to upskill us as a business which has been a great relationship for them as well because the better job, we do the better plants they get.”

JCLM Farming now produces between five and ten million strawberry plants each year.

Plant varieties include Red Rhapsody ASBP, Stella ASBP, Florida Beauty, UCD Victor, and UCD Eclipse. 

Mr Beattie said the farm initially focused on producing strawberry plants in the field but over time they began growing “misted tip” plants in optimised tunnels. 

“Misted tips is a more efficient way to produce plants— it’s about one tenth of the amount of water per plant to produce a plant in there than it is in the field,” Mr Beattie said.

“It’s also about a sixth of the amount of fertiliser per plant and it’s about a fifth of the amount of ag-chem per plant.”

“From a whole industry perspective, I would say the sustainability of a strawberry produced from misted tips is better than from a soil plant because there’s a lower amount of resource consumption per plant,” he said.

Currently, JCLM grows about 90 per cent soil plants and 10 per cent as misted tips, but the Beattie’s are currently expanding their misted tip production with the addition of more tunnels currently under construction.

By next year, they plan to increase their misted tip production by 50 per cent.

“We’re propagation partners in Australia for the University of California Davis (UCD) breeding program and we managed to get an agreement with them to bring UCD Eclipse into the country,” Mr Beattie said.

JCLM is currently the only nursery in Australia with the UCD Eclipse plants.

They currently have the variety growing in a limited access, covered area for disease management.

Mr Beattie says that UCD Eclipse is one of the highest yielding strawberry plants in the world.

This season they grew around 1000 plants of the Eclipse and by next season Mr Beattie expects to have a quarter of a million plants available.

“Eclipse has strong disease resistance traits, it ships well, and it’s got a good flavour profile,” Mr Beattie said.

“We think the eclipse has got a range of other attractions as well—it’s a big berry so that means pick cost per kilo is lower.”

“It’s also allowing a more sustainable form of strawberry production through its innate disease resistance traits.”

“We’re really excited about that, and we’ve got a range of other varieties coming through behind Eclipse as well,” he said.

Mr Beattie said the business has a number of competitive advantages when it comes to the strawberry nursery production, the first one being isolation from fruit production—no fruit is grown on site.

“The closest fruit production site to here is about 25km so there’s a disease resistance barrier around us.”

Another advantage is their location in central Tasmania. 

Mr Beattie said being in the middle of Tasmania is the optimal place to grow quality plants.

“Because of our continental climate we’ve got what’s called a strong diurnal temperature variation, which means it’s hot in the day and cold at night,” Mr Beattie said.

“So what that means is we accumulate chill more quickly than any other site in Australia which is good for the plants.”

Over the past ten years, JCLM Farming has expanded its production, increasing the number of strawberry plants they grow by about 10 times and adjusting their growing methods. 

They have also seen growth in their grass and lucerne silage business due to lack of competition in the area.

In the next few years, JCLM Farming has plans for an additional 50ha of soil plants and the construction of 50 more propagation tunnels for misted tip production.

Mr Beattie says the misted tips, which grow in the tunnels, are planted in August and grow through until February.

The tips are cut into individuals and go into trays and get sent out to the customer between March and June as fresh plants.

As for the soil plants, they are planted in September and grow right through the season before being harvested and despatched as fresh plants from April through to early June.

“We freeze some of the plants both from the tunnels and the soil and then dispatch them about this time of year as well,” he said.

Recently, the Beattie’s have invested in new technologies to improve the productivity and sustainability of the farm. 

They have installed a fertiliser bench, which allows them to monitor and adjust nutrient levels for the plants from a smart phone. 

Mr Beattie says this system helps optimise plant growth and minimises resource waste.

As with any business, JCLM Farming has faced its share of challenges. 

One of the biggest hurdles has been the seasonal labour availability required for their intensive horticulture operation.

“We go from having two or three people here to having 60 so that can create problems in its own right but that’s the business we’re in,” Mr Beattie said.

Looking ahead, Mr Beattie says they are always looking at ways to improve and innovate and in the near future they are looking at venturing into raspberry nursery production.

Overall, Mr Beattie said one of the most rewarding aspects of running the farm is building good relationships with their customers. 

“I really like creating wealth for our employees and creating a returning customer base for our business and the way that we do that is through creating plants that we’re proud of.”