Fairfax Strawberry
In 1979 horticulturist Donald Hyde Scott in his Strawberry Varieties of the United States suggested that the greatest berry creation of the twentieth century was the Fairfax, a strawberry whose “fresh eating and dessert quality is unsurpassed.” Juicy, mildly subacid, fragrant without being cloyingly perfumy, the Fairfax combined all of the qualities esteemed by strawberry fanciers. It did not degrade in texture when frozen. It did not lose flavor or fragrance when cooked. Its clarity of taste was bell-like and resonant, lasting long on the tongue.
The Fairfax Strawberry was the creation of the greatest small fruit breeder in American during the first half of the 20th century, George Darrow. A cross between the Royal Sovereign and Howard 17 strawberries, the Fairfax came into existence at the USDA experimental station at Glenn Dale, Maryland. Darrow fine tuned the strawberry’s genetics from 1923 until 1928. In winter 1928 he launched the variety and won, despite its middling size, a devoted following. 1933 marked its widespread adoption by commercial growers.
A sense of the standing of this wonderful berry can be had from Rayner’s 1942 Berry Book, a small fruits nursery catalog aimed at home berry growers. “Fairfax—With the fines flavor and highest dessert quality. Fairfax is the most popular home garden berry, which plus unusual firmness, large size, and productiveness give it high commercial value. Fairfax is now one of the major early varieties, is being successfully grown as far South as North Carolina, and in all Central and Northern States. . . has an exceptionally long fruiting season.” Besides firmness—a quality necessary in any u-pick or shipping variety—Rayner’s not several other agronomic qualities: it is free from leaf spot and scorch and it doesn’t diminish foliage when fruiting, something needful for plant health. “The flavor is exceptionally rich, full bodied and very sweet” [7].
Allen’s 1950 Book of Berries--Salisbury Md--elaborated on the exceptional culinary quality: “If there is anything tastier than the Fairfax it must grow in celestial regions—S. E. Hurdle Warren County OH. In the language of teen agers, Fairfax quality is ‘out of this world.” Since its introduction in 1933 Fairfax has set a new standard in quality. . . . This superb quality explains why we receive more enthusiastic letters about Fairfax from the those to whom we sell plants than about any other variety. . . . For the roadside markets Fairfax is the most popular berry in the country . . . . You’ve never tasted the best if you’ve never tasted Fairfax!” [10]
In the mid-twentieth century there was a contest of strawberry aesthetics between those who favored the lighter, pinker sort—the Dorset was the paragon of light strawberries—and those who favored darker, redder berries—the Fairfax was the model. One forgotten consideration in this judgment was that for a long time, strawberries darkened once they has passed maturity and began to decompose. The Fairfax scrambled this old criterion for rejection. Since the advent of the Fairfax, dark red has been the ideal of most crop strawberry breeders.
If the Fairfax had some preeminent flavor, why was it phased out of widespread cultivation in the 1970s and 1980s? Because monocropping of strawberries requires cultivars with extremely high disease resistance, and the concentrate of the market in the hands of a few growers meant longer transportation, requiring a berry so firm it could be bounced without bruising. As the information page on strawberryplants.com so trenchantly comments, “Fairfax strawberry plants are not fully disease resistant as some modern cultivars are . . . . Fairfax strawberries themselves have a softer and delicious texture, but this makes them more prone to bruising and damage during the picking/packing/shipping steps. Berries that don’t ship well don’t sell well at grocery stores. So, with the changing demands of commerce, Fairfax strawberry plants fell out of favor with growers in favor of more robust, but often less flavorful, cultivars”
The organization of a national market for berries and the concentration of the business in a very few companies hastened the virtual extinction of the Fairfax after the 1980s. In 2000 a home gardener could not buy a plant from a nursery. Mike Welik, a grower from Middleton DE, thought it bizarre that the best tasting strawberry that American genetics produced, had vanished. Securing plant material from the USDA clonal germ plasm repository, he brought the plant back, supply pots of rooted Fairfax strawberries to growers.
Here are Melik’s thoughts on the berry: “I have to say that the flavor or Fairfax is phenomenal. I have never tasted any hybrid like it. That’s why I keep it around! Some say that Marshall is the best tasting hybrid but I don't agree with that assessment. Marshall had an aftertaste that I didn't care for and the fruit is "watery" - you get juice all over your hands when picking them. Fairfax flavor is very mild, sweet and should be the standard that everyone compares to when breeding new stock. . . . Other characteristics of Fairfax: pros beside flavor - the flowers produce a lot of pollen. The bees love them and the pollen can pollinate many other plants of other hybrids. The flowers are large and have almost ornamental value. cons - Fairfax is only an average producer of runners. It takes longer to fill a space with them. This is a negative for anyone who wants to produce plants for sale.” [Correspondence with author 12/19/2020]
Arthritis forced Melik to suspend sales in 2018, but before he did, he put plant material in the hands of a number of growers. You can secure plants here:
http://ediblelandscaping.com/buyPlants.php?func=view&id=1021