Open-field strawberries are hard to sell, potted strawberries are favored by the market

He Shengbo's potted strawberries.

"Without any advertising, I've already sold more than 200 pots. It looks like I got the potted strawberry approach right!" Recently, in Jinxing Community, Xinglong Town, Nanchuan, villager He Shengbo chatted with this writer about his "new path" while tending his potted strawberries in a greenhouse. In 6 greenhouses, his tens of thousands of potted strawberries are growing vigorously.

Open-field strawberries face selling difficulties

He Shengbo used to grow vegetables at home with his parents. The year before last, he decided to grow strawberries, which have higher economic returns.

The land where he grows strawberries was previously used for rice. He Shengbo plowed deeply and worked the soil carefully, improved the land, and planted more than 20 mu of open-field strawberries.

Hard work brought a bumper harvest. The strawberries grew very well; seven or eight of the large ones weighed one jin.

"They ripen in March and April, and strawberries flood the market all at once." Because it was his first harvest and he had no sales channels, He Shengbo took them to the market to sell, but did not sell many. Some people from the town and nearby areas also came to pick them themselves, but the volume was too small.

"A large amount of strawberries could not be sold and were left to rot in the fields." He Shengbo still feels heartache when he recalls it.

He said that open-field strawberries are different from greenhouse strawberries; once they ripen, they rot especially easily when it rains. As temperatures rose higher and higher, he could not harvest them fast enough, and more and more rotted.

Changing his approach to solve the problem

Having suffered the pain of strawberries being hard to sell, He Shengbo thought that only by finding a new "selling point" and breaking through the traditional model could he win by surprise.

He Shengbo began to think of ways to solve the problem. Last year, he found online that some people grow strawberries in pots, planting strawberry seedlings into small plastic pots. They are both tasty and attractive, making strawberries into potted plants with both ornamental and edible functions.

So he bought plastic flower pots and planted the strawberries in the pots. Then he moved them into greenhouses.

He Shengbo explained that most strawberry varieties currently grown bear fruit in spring and go dormant in summer, but for potted strawberries he chose the variety "Anna," which has a longer fruiting period, so as to increase their ornamental value.

According to him, to ensure the strawberries' safety, the soil used for the potted strawberries is also "specially made" by He Shengbo. He hauled distillers' grains from a nearby distillery to the edge of the field, carried out composting and fermentation and other processing to make natural organic fertilizer, then put it into the pots as base fertilizer, so his potted strawberries do not need chemical fertilizers.

"This year I planted 10,000 pots of potted strawberries, at 20 yuan per pot, and quite a few tourists have already come to buy them," He Shengbo said.

Potted strawberries are favored

He Shengbo explained that after buying potted strawberries, city residents can place them on balconies or rooftops to grow. Let them get some sun, and if the soil in the pot dries out, water them with rice-washing water, and they will grow very well.

This kind of potted strawberry can be grown from December all the way to April of the following year, during which strawberries continuously bloom and bear fruit. "Not only are the flowers attractive, the fruit is also delicious and fairly sweet. It's just that the fruit of this kind of strawberry is rather 'mini'; each pot of strawberries can yield about 1.5 jin of fruit," He Shengbo said.

Edible and ornamental, with a long lasting period, potted strawberries have many highlights and quickly won the favor of customers.

Now, He Shengbo's more than 10,000 pots of strawberries have already bloomed, and some have begun to bear fruit. He Shengbo explained that growing ordinary strawberries can bring in 10,000 yuan per mu, while this kind of potted strawberry can reach 40,000 yuan per mu in returns.