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Researchers in the United States are adapting soil steaming for field-grown crops, with current trials focused especially on California strawberries. Steam can suppress some soilborne diseases and weeds when soil receives sufficient heat, but making treatment fast and affordable across farm-sized fields remains a challenge. The method is under study—not yet a proven, universally adopted replacement for chemical fumigation.
How soil steaming is intended to work
Before planting, equipment directs steam into the soil to raise its temperature and suppress targeted soilborne pests, including disease-causing organisms and weed seeds. The aim is to treat the crop’s planting area, not necessarily to sterilize the entire soil profile. Results depend on the organism, soil conditions, treatment depth, and how much heat reaches the target for how long.
A USDA Agricultural Research Service abstract published in 2010 cited 70 °C for 20 minutes as a threshold for effectively killing soilborne pests in the context of its mobile steam applicator research. That is a research-specific reference point, not a universal operating prescription for every soil, organism, depth, or machine.
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Why researchers are testing steam in strawberry fields
California is a consequential test case: the Associated Press reported in October 2026 that nine out of 10 U.S.-grown strawberries come from the state, which has 35,000 acres (14,000 hectares) of strawberry production. Soilborne disease can damage crops severely. Rick Tomlinson, president of the California Strawberry Commission, described the stakes to AP: “Fundamentally, there’s this disease in the soil and if you don’t have some solution, you’re just rolling the dice and one of the years you’re going to end up bankrupt,” he said, “because it can wipe out the entire field.”
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AP reported that four California growers took part in trials the preceding fall. On Rod Koda’s farm, researcher Jenny Broome of the University of California, Santa Cruz, described steam-treated plots as having less Fusarium wilt damage and producing more berries. Koda reported nearly twice the amount of organic strawberries from the particular comparison he described, calling the difference “very noticeable.” These are early observations from particular plots, not evidence that steaming will double yields across farms, seasons, varieties, or soils.
What the current research is measuring
California strawberry trials
A USDA Agricultural Research Service project record describes preplant trials in organic and conventional strawberries in the Watsonville/Salinas and Oxnard regions. Researchers compare steam-treated soil with untreated soil and, on conventional farms, with fumigated soil. The work includes pathogen assays and sequencing-based characterization of soil microbial communities. The record lists the project period as February 1, 2025, through January 31, 2026.
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High-tunnel tomatoes in Ohio
A separate USDA Agricultural Research Service project record covers high-tunnel tomato research comparing steaming with anaerobic soil disinfestation, a method that suppresses pests by creating low-oxygen soil conditions. The project measures microbial community recovery and effects on plant and soil health, and evaluates barriers to adoption. Its listed project period ran from January 1, 2024, through June 30, 2026; the record’s end date does not establish whether related work continued afterward.
Earlier work on field equipment and economics
A completed UC Davis-led project, recorded by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, examined high-efficiency steam application for soil disinfestation in strawberry nurseries. Its 2020–2024 work included field trials, soil-temperature targets, fuel monitoring, and economic analysis. The project record says traditional steaming methods have been slow and expensive, and frames improving speed and cost effectiveness as goals. Its cumulative award was $499,875.
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Can steam replace fumigants?
Not on the evidence currently described. California researchers are comparing steaming with fumigated soil as well as untreated soil, but the existence of those trials does not establish that steam matches fumigation across crops, locations, pathogens, or commercial conditions. AP’s October 2026 report describes faster treatment and cost-effectiveness as unresolved goals.
Steam is also not automatically chemical-free in every system. The UC Davis project record includes study of steam alone and steam used alongside additives such as allyl isothiocyanate and heat-generating compounds. A fair comparison with another treatment should consider:
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- Which pathogens and weeds are controlled, and how consistently.
- Crop yield and quality under the relevant field conditions.
- Treatment depth and the soil temperatures achieved where targets are present.
- Application speed and the area treated in a practical work period.
- Effects on microbial communities and how those communities recover.
- Fuel use, operating costs, and fit with the crop and growing system.
Why field-scale adoption is difficult
Heating soil with steam is not new; it has long been used in greenhouses. The engineering problem is adapting it to open-field crop production at a pace and cost farms can manage. Equipment must deliver heat through the relevant soil volume while treating beds efficiently. Fuel use, time, pathogen control, crop response, and soil biology all matter to whether the approach makes sense in a particular operation.
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What is known—and what remains open
- Supported: Researchers are testing preplant steam treatment for soilborne disease and weed suppression, including in California strawberry fields.
- Promising but preliminary: AP reported less Fusarium wilt damage and more berries in steam-treated plots described by a researcher, along with a grower-reported near-doubling of organic strawberries in a particular comparison.
- Still being evaluated: Field application speed, cost-effectiveness, crop outcomes, pathogen control, and effects on soil microbial communities and their recovery.
- Not established by these reports: A universal yield increase, uniform microbiome recovery, commercial competitiveness, or a ready-made replacement for fumigation across U.S. agriculture.
Broome summed up the engineering effort to AP: “We’re going back to the future, where we’re looking back at an older technology but we’re finding more ways to engineer more efficiently and use it.”
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