Strawberry Propagation Methods, Seedling Cultivation Techniques, and Nursery Management Key Points
Strawberry is a perennial herbaceous plant of the genus Fragaria in the rose family (Rosaceae). Its propagation methods fall into two categories: sexual reproduction and asexual reproduction. To avoid segregation from sexual reproduction that would affect yield and quality, asexual reproduction is generally used in production, that is, propagation by runners. Let's take a look below at the strawberry seedling cultivation techniques!
Preparing Mother Plants
After determining the strawberry variety to propagate, select runner seedlings that are vigorous and free of pests and diseases as mother plants for propagation. After the transplanting of the fruit-picking field is completed, heel in the mother plants in the open field to overwinter. The heel-in density is best at 20 cm × 20 cm, or 23 cm × 23 cm, with 10,000 plants per mu. The number of mother plants to plant is determined by the number of seedlings needed for the following year. Generally, 400 mother plants in the second year can cultivate 1 mu of strawberry seedlings, and by autumn they can produce 40,000 to 60,000 runner seedlings for 8 mu of field planting.
Nursery Land Preparation
The nursery should be chosen on plots with fertile soil that is not prone to compaction and that have convenient drainage and irrigation. A young orchard with irrigation facilities can serve as a seedling-picking nursery, which not only makes full use of the land but also uses the shade of the fruit trees to reduce the impact of high summer temperatures. After the nursery is selected, broadcast 30 loads of fully decomposed barnyard manure per mu, and in spring, seize fine weather to plow and form beds with a width of 3 m. Before planting, apply per mu 2.5-3 kg of urea, 3.5-4 kg of potassium chloride, and 5 kg of superphosphate mixed and placed in holes, and mix the fertilizer thoroughly with the soil.
Planting Time
When the spring temperature stabilizes above 15°C, planting can be carried out at the appropriate time, generally in mid-to-late April, striving to complete planting by the end of April. When planting, set 1 row on each side of the 3 m wide bed, with a plant spacing of 80 cm, planting more than 400 plants per mu. Mother plants must be planted at an appropriate depth, strictly preventing soil clods from burying the heart leaves and the rhizome from being exposed and suffering drought. At the same time, the curved protruding side of the rhizome should face the inner side of the bed, because this protruding side is the part that produces runners, which is beneficial to the growth and management of runners.
Nursery Management
Immediately after the mother plants are planted, water thoroughly to settle the roots, and then water once a day for 4-6 days according to weather conditions. After they survive, check the plants promptly and fill in gaps, and promptly remedy mother plants planted too deep or too shallow. If high temperature and drought occur during strawberry seedling cultivation, special attention should be paid to water management, adopting multiple furrow irrigations to keep the soil moist frequently. From planting until the runners cover the whole field takes more than 5 months, and when the gaps in the seedling-picking nursery are large, seedlings should be filled in promptly. In the summer and autumn weed-growing season, frequent watering also makes the soil prone to compaction, which is unfavorable for runner seedlings to take root, so cultivating and weeding should be carried out to keep the bed surface loose and weed-free. In addition, in early spring, the flower clusters of the mother plants should be removed promptly, and after runners emerge they should also be regularly arranged so that the runners are evenly distributed and do not overlap each other, supplemented by artificial pressing to ensure uniform and strong seedlings. Generally, no topdressing is needed during strawberry seedling cultivation. If the base fertilizer is insufficient, the plants grow weakly, the leaves turn yellow, and few runners emerge, then in combination with irrigation, apply 3-5 loads of human feces and urine per mu, diluted with 1 load of water, and splash-apply 1-2 times.
Pest and Disease Control
After strawberry planting and in the early growth stage, there may be damage from cutworms or white grubs. Check frequently in the early morning. If notched leaves and dead seedlings are found, dig around the plants to find and destroy them, or apply per mu 2.5 kg of 1.5% organophosphorus mixed powder blended with 15-20 kg of fine soil. During the growth period, 2000 times omethoate or 1000-1500 times dichlorvos emulsifiable concentrate can be used to control aphid damage. The main strawberry diseases are gray mold and root rot. Regularly remove old leaves, dead leaves, and diseased leaves to reduce pathogen breeding. For chemical control, spray 1-2 times with 1000-15000 times 50% thiophanate-methyl or an equal-amount 250 times Bordeaux mixture.
How Do Strawberries Propagate? Strawberry Seedling Cultivation Techniques
[Common Questions]How do strawberries propagate?
[Expert Answer]Strawberry is one of the common fruits in home life and is deeply favored by consumers. Strawberry cultivation has the characteristics of strong adaptability, a short growth cycle, early fruiting, and quick results, and it is widely planted in various places. To avoid segregation from sexual reproduction that would affect yield and quality, asexual reproduction is generally used in production, that is, propagation by runners. The strawberry seedling cultivation techniques are introduced as follows:
Image: Strawberry seedling cultivation techniques
I. Preparing Mother Plants
After determining the strawberry variety to propagate, select runner seedlings that are vigorous and free of pests and diseases as mother plants for propagation. After the transplanting of the fruit-picking field is completed, heel in the mother plants in the open field to overwinter. The heel-in density is best at 20 cm × 20 cm, or 23 cm × 23 cm, with 10,000 plants per mu. The number of mother plants to plant is determined by the number of seedlings needed for the following year. Generally, 400 mother plants in the second year can cultivate 1 mu of strawberry seedlings, and by autumn they can produce 40,000 to 60,000 runner seedlings for 8 mu of field planting.
II. Nursery Land Preparation
The nursery should be chosen on plots with fertile soil that is not prone to compaction and that have convenient drainage and irrigation. A young orchard with irrigation facilities can serve as a seedling-picking nursery, which not only makes full use of the land but also uses the shade of the fruit trees to reduce the impact of high summer temperatures. After the nursery is selected, broadcast 30 loads of fully decomposed barnyard manure per mu, and in spring, seize fine weather to plow and form beds with a width of 3 m. Before planting, apply per mu 2.5-3 kg of urea, 3.5-4 kg of potassium chloride, and 5 kg of superphosphate mixed and placed in holes, and mix the fertilizer thoroughly with the soil.
III. Planting Time
When the spring temperature stabilizes above 15°C, planting can be carried out at the appropriate time, generally in mid-to-late April, striving to complete planting by the end of April. When planting, set 1 row on each side of the 3 m wide bed, with a plant spacing of 80 cm, planting more than 400 plants per mu. Mother plants must be planted at an appropriate depth, strictly preventing soil clods from burying the heart leaves and the rhizome from being exposed and suffering drought. At the same time, the curved protruding side of the rhizome should face the inner side of the bed, because this protruding side is the part that produces runners, which is beneficial to the growth and management of runners.
IV. Nursery Management
Immediately after the mother plants are planted, water thoroughly to settle the roots, and then water once a day for 4-6 days according to weather conditions. After they survive, check the plants promptly and fill in gaps, and promptly remedy mother plants planted too deep or too shallow. If high temperature and drought occur during strawberry seedling cultivation, special attention should be paid to water management, adopting multiple furrow irrigations to keep the soil moist frequently. From planting until the runners cover the whole field takes more than 5 months, and when the gaps in the seedling-picking nursery are large, seedlings should be filled in promptly. In the summer and autumn weed-growing season, frequent watering also makes the soil prone to compaction, which is unfavorable for runner seedlings to take root, so cultivating and weeding should be carried out to keep the bed surface loose and weed-free. In addition, in early spring, the flower clusters of the mother plants should be removed promptly, and after runners emerge they should also be regularly arranged so that the runners are evenly distributed and do not overlap each other, supplemented by artificial pressing to ensure uniform and strong seedlings. Generally, no topdressing is needed during strawberry seedling cultivation. If the base fertilizer is insufficient, the plants grow weakly, the leaves turn yellow, and few runners emerge, then in combination with irrigation, apply 3-5 loads of human feces and urine per mu, diluted with 1 load of water, and splash-apply 1-2 times.
Image: Strawberry seedling cultivation techniques
V. Pest and Disease Control
After strawberry planting and in the early growth stage, there may be damage from cutworms or white grubs. Check frequently in the early morning. If notched leaves and dead seedlings are found, dig around the plants to find and destroy them, or apply per mu 2.5 kg of 1.5% organophosphorus mixed powder blended with 15-20 kg of fine soil. During the growth period, 2000 times omethoate or 1000-1500 times dichlorvos emulsifiable concentrate can be used to control aphid damage. The main strawberry diseases are gray mold and root rot. Regularly remove old leaves, dead leaves, and diseased leaves to reduce pathogen breeding. For chemical control, spray 1-2 times with 1000-15000 times 50% thiophanate-methyl or an equal-amount 250 times Bordeaux mixture.
[Editor's Conclusion]Mastering strawberry propagation techniques is the foundation for achieving stable and high yields in strawberry cultivation, and growers should pay attention to it. The above has introduced strawberry seedling cultivation techniques for everyone, and we hope it will be helpful!
Key Points of Strawberry Cultivation and Management Techniques
Strawberry (scientific name: Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) is a perennial herbaceous plant of the genus Fragaria in the rose family (Rosaceae), 10-40 cm tall, with stems lower than or nearly equal to the leaves. The leaves are trifoliate, the leaflets have short petiolules and are obovate or rhombic, and the petioles are 2-10 cm long. The inflorescence is a cyme with 5-15 flowers. The aggregate fruit is large, up to 3 cm in diameter. The flowering period is April-May, and the fruiting period is June-July.
Strawberry is native to South America, and is cultivated throughout China and widely cultivated in Europe and other places.
Strawberry has high nutritional value and is rich in vitamin C. Traditional Chinese medicine holds that strawberry is sweet in flavor and cool in nature, entering the spleen, stomach, and lung meridians. It has the effects of moistening the lungs and promoting fluid production, strengthening the spleen and harmonizing the stomach, promoting diuresis and reducing swelling, and relieving fever and summerheat. It is suitable for lung-heat cough, poor appetite, scanty urine, and summerheat thirst, etc.
Shading and cooling. Build a 1 m high shade shed over the bed surface, covering the top with some firewood, grass, and other materials; tall-stalk crops can also be planted along the edges of the bed, but they must not be planted too densely, so as to avoid poor ventilation and insufficient light, which would affect the normal growth of strawberries.Cultivating and weeding. First clear away the spread straw or the mulching film, remove diseased and weak plants, and then carry out cultivating and loosening the soil. The cultivation depth is 50cm~6cm (do not damage the mother plant roots). At this time the weather is hot, moisture is suitable, and weeds grow abundantly, so cultivating and loosening the soil should mainly focus on removing weeds. Remove yellow leaves and dead leaves of strawberries to reduce nutrient consumption and water evaporation and to promote ventilation and light penetration.
Directional runner pressing. During the summer and autumn growth period after strawberry fruit harvest, runners will successively produce 3-5 times of daughter seedlings. For strawberry nurseries used to cultivate seedlings, in order to allow the daughter seedlings to grow into strong seedlings, during the seedling-producing period the runners should be promptly straightened in a directional manner and arranged evenly, and the new plants produced should be slightly pressed with soil to promote new root growth.
Combining drainage and irrigation. Most strawberry roots are located in the shallow soil layer, so they are afraid of both drought and waterlogging. When the weather is dry, plots with irrigation conditions should be furrow-irrigated once every 7-10 days; plots without irrigation conditions should have water splashed in the morning and evening every day to combat drought, watering enough and thoroughly. After entering the rainy season, the furrows and drainage ditches should be cleared to keep the ditches connected, so that the ground dries after the rain stops.
Digging furrows and applying fertilizer. After strawberry harvest, it enters the second peak of vegetative growth. Topdressing at this stage is beneficial to the plant's vegetative growth, restores growth vigor, and increases later photosynthetic accumulation. Dig small furrows between the beds and apply per mu 10 kg-15 kg of urea, 15 kg-20 kg of superphosphate, and 7.5 kg-10 kg of potassium chloride.
Controlling pests and diseases. During summer and autumn, the pest that threatens strawberries the most is the white grub, which often bites and damages the plants, causing the whole plant to wither and die. You can use 800 times trichlorfon or 1000 times dichlorvos solution to pour around the seedling base, or catch them manually. The adult of the white grub, the scarab beetle, often lays eggs on piles of undecomposed manure, so using fully decomposed organic fertilizer can reduce the damage.