What are the main soilless cultivation techniques for strawberries?

Strawberry is a fruit often eaten in daily life, and its distinctive sweet-and-sour flavor is very popular. With the advancement of cultivation techniques today, strawberries can also be bought in winter. Here we introduce the soilless cultivation techniques for strawberries.

There are many soilless cultivation methods, broadly divided into two major categories: first, hydroponics, which is a cultivation method in which the plant roots are continuously or intermittently immersed in a nutrient solution; second, solid substrate culture, in which the main purpose of using a substrate is to replace soil and anchor the plants so that the underground and aboveground parts of the strawberry can grow normally. This requires that the culture substrate have good physical properties, be loose and well aerated, have strong water-holding capacity, and be free of pests, diseases and weeds, while the nutrient solution mainly provides the various nutrients necessary for the growth and development of the strawberry.

There are three hydroponic methods for strawberries. The first is the nutrient film technique, whose principle is to make a very thin layer of nutrient solution flow continuously in circulation past the crop roots, ensuring a constant supply of water and nutrients to the crop while also continuously supplying fresh oxygen to the roots, avoiding the drawback of ordinary hydroponic cultivation in which strawberry roots are immersed in nutrient solution for long periods, causing oxygen deficiency, affecting root respiration and, in severe cases, causing root death.

The second hydroponic method is the floating board capillary method. It places floating boards in a cultivation bed with relatively deep nutrient solution, making the rhizosphere environmental conditions relatively stable, reducing temperature fluctuations, providing sufficient oxygen to the roots, and not being affected by power outages in the supply of nutrient solution. The third is aeroponics. It uses a spraying device to atomize the nutrient solution and spray it directly onto the surface of the plant roots, so that the roots grow in an aerial mist environment filled with nutrient solution.

Solid substrate culture for strawberries refers to using the aforementioned suitable materials to make a cultivation substrate to replace soil for planting. There are many types of substrates for soilless cultivation, which can be divided by composition into two major categories: organic substrates and inorganic substrates. The main methods include trough culture, that is, loading the substrate into cultivation troughs of a certain volume to grow strawberries. Rock wool culture, that is, planting strawberries in rock wool blocks of a certain volume so that they take root and are anchored in the rock wool, absorb water and nutrients, and carry out growth and development, flowering and fruiting. Strawberry pot culture, that is, filling flower pots with substrate to grow strawberries, supplying nutrient solution from the upper part of the pot and installing a drainage pipe at the lower part, with the discharged nutrient solution recovered in a liquid storage container for reuse.

The above are the main current soilless cultivation techniques for strawberries, but to carry out large-scale soilless cultivation of strawberries, it is still necessary to follow experts or specific instruction manuals and proceed according to the specific situation.