How to Grow Everbearing Strawberries? The Latest Cultivation Techniques and Methods Tutorial

Everbearing strawberries grown in the open field are planted at the end of September, sprout in mid-March of the following year, and begin flowering in late March; from late March they bloom and bear fruit successively, continuing until early November; in late October, as temperatures drop, a greenhouse is installed, and combined with protected cultivation, year-round flowering and fruiting can be achieved, with basically no obvious dormant period throughout the year. Let's take a look together at everbearing strawberry cultivation techniques!

Site Selection for an Everbearing Strawberry Orchard

Everbearing strawberries like fertile soil, water, and light, but they fear waterlogging and drought. Therefore, choose a site with ample sunlight, level ground, fertile and loose soil, and good drainage and irrigation conditions, on sandy loam or neutral soil, with a pH of 5.5 to 6.5 being suitable. For clay loam, it is best to apply more organic fertilizer or improve it with added sand before planting. Before planting, apply 3000 to 5000 kg of well-decomposed high-quality organic fertilizer per mu, along with 50 kg of compound fertilizer. After fertilizing, plow about 30 cm deep, let the fertilizer and soil mix thoroughly, rake level, allow to settle, and then form beds or ridges.

Everbearing Strawberry Planting Techniques

1. Flat bed planting: To make watering and management easier, beds should not be too long or too wide. Generally, beds are 1.2 to 1.5 m wide (planting 3 to 4 rows), 10 to 20 m long, with bed edges 15 cm high. Once the beds are prepared, rake them level and wait to plant.

2. Ridge planting: In low-lying areas, plots with poor drainage, and for winter protected cultivation, ridge planting can be used. Ridges are 15 to 20 cm high, with a top width of 40 to 50 cm (planting 2 rows), a bottom width of 60 to 70 cm, and a ditch width between ridges of 15 to 20 cm. After the beds and ridges are made, give them a light watering or press them appropriately so the soil settles.

3. Planting time: Everbearing strawberries are generally planted in spring or autumn, and can also be planted in winter using a winter-warm greenhouse. Spring planting is generally from mid-to-late March to early April, and autumn planting from mid-to-late August to mid-to-late October.

4. Planting density: Everbearing strawberry plots should maintain good ventilation and light conditions and a relatively large soil area, so as to achieve high yield, good quality, and large fruit. Planting should not be too dense. Plant spacing should be kept at 30 to 40 cm × 40 to 50 cm, using triangular planting, with 8000 to 11000 plants established per mu. The planting depth should follow the principle of “shallow enough not to expose the roots, deep enough not to bury the crown.”

Post-Planting Management of Everbearing Strawberries

1. Field weeding: Weeds compete with strawberries for water, light, and nutrients, causing reduced yield and lower quality. Therefore, weed control is an important guarantee for producing high-quality large-fruited strawberries. Field weeding can use integrated measures such as manual weeding, mulching film to suppress weeds, and crop rotation. To reduce labor, herbicides can also be used for weed control.

2. Fertilizer and water management: During the growing season, everbearing strawberries need multiple rounds of soil topdressing and foliar spraying. Soil topdressing is generally done 4 to 6 times per year, applying about 50 kg of compound fertilizer or multi-element compound fertilizer per mu each time. When applying, spread the fertilizer evenly in the strawberry beds, and water promptly after topdressing. Never scatter fertilizer into the crown of the strawberry, to avoid burning young leaves. Foliar spraying is done about once every 20 days, mainly with nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium compound fertilizer at a concentration of 0.2 to 0.3%. After each topdressing, water promptly. In dry years, water more often during the growing season, keeping soil moisture at 70 to 80% of field maximum water-holding capacity. Strawberries are not tolerant of waterlogging, so pay attention to drainage during the rainy season.

3. Flower and fruit thinning: Everbearing strawberries can bloom and bear fruit about 60 days after planting. To produce high-quality large fruit with high yield and high efficiency, plant strong seedlings and grow large plants. Especially for seedlings planted in spring, be sure to grow the plants large and strong before letting them bear fruit. In the early stage, pay attention to promptly removing flowers and stolons, and only retain flowers and fruit after the plant canopy reaches 30 to 40 cm. Alternatively, plant seedlings in spring, strengthen cultivation and management, and let them bear fruit in late summer and early autumn, achieving both large, high-quality fruit and high yield with high efficiency. At each flowering period, retain 4 to 5 early flowers and large flowers, and remove small flowers and late flowers. The earlier the flower thinning, the better. After fruit set, remove small fruit and deformed fruit, retaining 3 to 4 large fruits per plant each time. After the previous fruit ripens, select and retain another 4 to 5 large flowers to maintain continuous flowering and fruiting.

4. Reasonable pruning: To reduce nutrient consumption and ensure high yield and continuous fruiting, stolons must be continuously removed during the growing season. Removing stolons early can increase strawberry yield by about 20%. Everbearing strawberries grow new leaves and differentiate new stems throughout the year, so during the entire growing season, continuously remove lower old leaves to promote the growth of upper new leaves and new stems. Old leaves can generally be removed from the base of the petiole once the petiole begins to yellow and changes from upright to flat.

5. Straw bedding for fruit: As the fruit enlarges, the inflorescence gradually droops and touches the ground, making it easily contaminated by soil, which affects coloring and quality and easily causes fruit rot. In strawberry plots not covered with plastic film, 2 to 3 weeks after flowering, spread straw between the strawberry plants to cushion the fruit underneath, or arrange straw into rings and place the fruit on the straw rings.

6. Winter management: As long as the temperature is suitable, everbearing strawberries can bloom and bear fruit year-round. Therefore, in production, open-field cultivation can be used in spring, summer, and autumn. In mid-to-late October, when the temperature drops to 5 to 7 degrees C, promptly install a greenhouse to ensure continuous flowering and fruiting. Management inside the greenhouse is the same as for ordinary strawberries.

6. Timely renovation: Under general management conditions, growth begins to decline from the 3rd year after planting, with reduced yield, lower quality, frequent pest and disease occurrence, and decreased economic benefits. To ensure that everbearing strawberries both bloom and fruit continuously and achieve high yield, high quality, and high efficiency, renovation is generally required every 2 to 3 years. For open-field cultivation, replanting once every two years is more suitable.

Disease Control of Everbearing Strawberries

Leaf spot

[Symptoms] Leaf spot, also known as snake-eye spot, mainly damages leaves, petioles, fruit stalks, young stems, and seeds. Dark purple small spots form on the leaves, and after expanding they form nearly round or oval lesions with purplish-red-brown edges, grayish-white centers, and slight concentric rings, making the whole lesion look like a snake eye. No small black granules form on the lesions.

[Control] Promptly remove diseased and old leaves. In the early stage of the disease, use 70% chlorothalonil wettable powder at 500 to 700 times dilution, and spray again after ten days. Or use 70% mancozeb wettable powder, 200 g per mu mixed with 75 kg of water for spraying.

2. Powdery mildew

[Symptoms] Powdery mildew mainly damages leaves, and also infects flowers, fruit, fruit stalks, and petioles. Leaves curl upward into a spoon shape. Damaged flower buds and petals turn purplish-red, fail to open or open incompletely, and the fruit does not enlarge, becoming slender; young fruit loses its luster and hardens. Strawberries harmed near ripening lose their commercial value.

[Control] On the central diseased plants and those around them, focus on spraying 0.3 degrees Baume lime sulfur mixture. After harvest, cut all leaves in the whole orchard, and spray 70% thiophanate-methyl at 1000 times dilution, or 50% Tuzet at 800 times dilution, or 30% triflumizole at 5000 times dilution, etc.

3. Gray mold

[Symptoms] Gray mold is the main disease after flowering, and can occur on flowers, petals, fruit, and leaves. On fruit during the enlargement stage, brown spots form and gradually expand, densely covered with gray mold, causing the fruit to soften and rot, seriously affecting yield.

[Control] Carry out from the bud stage to the flowering stage, spraying 25% carbendazim wettable powder at 300 times dilution, 50% captan wettable powder at 800 times dilution, 50% iprodione at 500 to 700 times dilution, etc.

4. Root rot

[Symptoms] Starting from the lower leaves, the leaf margins turn reddish-brown and gradually wilt upward, eventually dying. The stele begins to turn dark brown in the middle and rots, and the central stele of the root turns red.

[Control] Before transplanting strawberries, use 40% asparagus green powder at 600 times dilution, pour it onto the bed surface, then cover with soil, level, and transplant, to effectively kill pathogens in the soil, reduce the base level of inoculum in the field, and reduce chances of infection.

5. Verticillium wilt

[Symptoms] Verticillium wilt is a soil-borne disease. The main symptoms are deformed young leaves, yellowed leaves, and an extremely rough leaf surface. Subsequently, the leaf margins turn brown and wilt inward until death.

[Control] Strictly introduce disease-free plants for planting, shorten the renovation cycle, and use 13.5 L to 20 L of chloropicrin or solar film-covered flooding for soil disinfection. Diseased plants must be pulled up and burned.