Pent-up berry cravings are leading to squabbles in Manitoba fields. (Rick Bowmer/Associated Press)Eagerness for fresh berry flavour is apparently leading to incidents of "row rage" at southern Manitoba's U-picks this summer.

Most U-pick strawberry farms opened up on the weekend — two weeks later than usual, due to a cool spring.

The delay has left some people with pent-up berry cravings and a bit of an aggressive streak, says one U-pick operator.

"There's never been a fistfight, but pretty darn close one time. One of our guys kind of stepped in between them," said Murray Boonstra, who runs Boonstra Berries in Stonewall, Man., north of Winnipeg.

Weekend pickers were muscling in on each other's rows, resulting in yelling matches, Boonstra said.

"Sometimes they just don't listen, they keep doing it, and then they start screaming and yelling, and then we just nicely ask one of them to move to a different row," he said with a laugh.

"Usually the one, of course, who's stealing the berries from the other row, we just ask them politely, 'Why don't you just come with me and we'll put you in a better row,' we tell them."

It's mostly adults who cause the problems, Boonstra added.

Berry-lovers are so eager to get out in the fields, there was a lineup of people on the highway Monday morning, waiting to start picking — even in the unseasonably cool and rainy weather.