Strawberry plants were first brought to Mexico from France in the year 1849 and to Irapuato in 1852.
Back then, Don Nicolas Tejada brought 24 strawberry plants to Irapuato and planted them in a nursery next to the river, in front of Morera and Noria.
According to Genaro Acosta's book Traditional Notes of Irapuato, Volume 2, which can be accessed in the Historical Archives, those plants were left uncultivated there until 1858.
That year, a person bought a plantation of 30 strawberries for a very high price. The fruit became a novelty after the first strawberry ice cream was sold in the city.
The strawberries became popular and had a boom thanks to Antonio Retana and D. Oscar Droege, a German horticulturist who planted the orchard of San Juan.
However, it wasn't until 1880 that strawberry and tuberose production started, so much so that Irapuato was named the Strawberry Capital of the World.
Source: notus.com.mx