LEWISTON — Warm, sunny weather has led to an early strawberry crop in Maine.

The strawberries arrived up to two weeks early in some parts of the state.

“We’ve been picking for more than a week and a half,” said Kate Brennan of Ridgeview Farm in Greene.

Brennan said the crop is very sweet this year. “This year’s berries taste wonderful,” she told the Lewiston Sun-Journal.

The crop hasn’t been without its challenges. While the warm weather and sun led the strawberries to mature faster, a hard frost killed as much as 25 to 30 percent of the area’s strawberries, said Tori Jackson, an educator for agriculture and natural resources with the University of Maine’s Cooperative Extension office in Lisbon.

Some people were prepared for the frost, such as Doug Chipman of Chipman’s in Poland. He readied his irrigation equipment and sprayed his fields with water to create a film that would insulate them from the cold.

“I stayed with them all night,” Chipman said. “We didn’t lose many.”

Since then, the weather has held steady, with lots of sun and warm-but-not-too-steamy weather, and some rain.

“You can get five or six days of rain in a row and they can spoil,” Chipman said.