Best Practices for Planting, Growing, and Caring for Strawberries in Commercial Agriculture

If you're looking to diversify your crops, strawberries could be an excellent choice — especially if you already have soil that leans acidic. Strawberries are a global favorite, virtually always in demand, and are quick to produce fruit once established. Some species can even provide multiple harvests per year.

There are also some drawbacks to planting strawberries, including their high input costs and difficulties transporting them safely. In addition, they're vulnerable to pests and fungi. However, if you're properly prepared, strawberries can bring a substantial profit — potentially up to 20-30% per season.

So in this guide, we'll lay out the basics of how to help strawberries grow at every stage: preparing the soil, planting, providing care, harvesting, and storing and transporting them.

Strawberry Basics

There are three main varieties of strawberries: June-bearing, ever-bearing, and day-neutral.

June-bearing strawberries are the most popular variety, typically producing the largest berries. Despite the name, they can potentially produce fruit throughout the summer, with one single large harvest.

Ever-bearing strawberries produce smaller fruits, which are more typically used for cooking, jams, jellies, and similar purposes. These plants can produce 1-2 smaller harvests across the summer and into the fall.

Day-neutral strawberries are not affected by the length of the day and insteadб bloom and fruit based on temperature. If it's between 35°F and 85°F (1°C to 30°C), they'll produce small harvests semi-regularly. These are often seen as a preferable alternative to ever-bearing varieties.

Site Selection and Soil Preparation

Depending on the land, it may take 1-2 years to fully prepare a site for optimal strawberry growth. You'll want to do thorough soil testing beforehand.

Strawberries grow best in well-drained sandy loam soil, and they need a lot of room for shallow roots that spread widely. The soil should also be rich in organic matter, and may need to be enriched with compost, mulch, or other organics prior to planting. Cover crops such as oats or buckwheat can also help enrich the soil, before planting strawberries.

You also need a little soil acidity to cultivate strawberry plants successfully. They can grow in neutral soil, but a pH of 5.5-6.5 will typically give the best results.

In addition, strawberries thrive in sunlight, so avoid shade.

Rotating crops with strawberries is a good idea, as they otherwise require a lot of fertilizer. Legumes such as soybeans are a good rotational crop. However do not rotate strawberries with tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, or eggplants. These species carry root rot fungus such as Verticillium, which can quickly ruin a strawberry crop.

Strawberry Planting and Propagation

Seed vs Runners

Strawberries can be grown directly from seed, or clones can be grown from the runners created by established plants.Generally speaking, growing strawberry plants from runners is easier and more reliable, as you'll be receiving genetic clones of the parent plant. If consistent product quality and taste are a priority, grow from runners. However, be aware that genetic monocultures are more vulnerable to disease. Growing from seed is better if you're trying out new breeds, or want greater diversity in your fields.

Planting Configurations

Depending on the species, you may be planting in the fall, allowing them to develop over the winter, or else planting in the spring. Check the needs of your specific breeds to set out the strawberry plants successfully.


Strawberries are best planted in rows, with a spacing of around 18 inches. There should be 3-4 feet of space between rows, as the strawberries will start sending out runners that need room to spread.
They should be well-mulched, with straw as one of the best options. In addition, they should be watered well immediately after planting. Your strawberries will want a lot of water early in their growth, at least one inch a week, up to two. Water the roots, not the leaves.


A strawberry plant can potentially begin flowering 2-3 months after planting, and produce fruit another month or so afterward. However, it's generally best to prevent them from fruiting for the first year. If you pick off the flowers as they appear, this will encourage the plant to spend resources on developing its roots, leading to healthier plants and larger yields for the rest of its life.


Keep in mind that strawberry plants prepared this way will still typically only live for 4-5 years, so they will need to be regularly replanted. Their runners are perfect for this.

Fertilization

As with nearly all plants, strawberries need standard NPK fertilizer. If the soil is properly prepared ahead of time, balanced 10-10-10 or 12-12-12 mixtures should usually work fine.

Avoid adding nitrogen in the spring of a fruiting year, if possible. This can create overly large bland fruit, as well as making the plant more susceptible to disease. Also, for June-bearing and ever-bearing varieties, do not add fertilizer after the final harvest of the year.

Foliar feeding or fertigation is possible, but generally better for situations where a quick fix is needed. Don't rely on foliar-based fertilization as your primary method.

Irrigation Strategies

Drip irrigation is generally preferred for established strawberries, as they have shallow roots that are easy to flood. Drop systems allow for highly precise watering, reduce waste, and also make them a bit less susceptible to disease. Day-neutral strawberries, in particular, need drip irrigation.

However, if growing from runners, strawberries will need overhead irrigation early on until they develop roots.

Ideally, you want a system in place that will allow you to monitor moisture levels in the soil constantly. The plants cannot be allowed to become flooded or to dry out. The more precisely you monitor your crops, noticing the signs of insufficient or excessive irrigation timely, the better your yields can be, with minimal waste.

Nikita Bedunkevich CEO at Cropler

Diseases and Pest Control

Strawberries are susceptible to a wide variety of diseases, pests, and scavengers.

Some potential pests include:

• Aphids
• Caterpillars
• Fruit flies
• Leafhoppers
• Parasitic nematodes
• Beetles
• Spider mites
• Whiteflies
• Thrips
• Slugs

In addition, strawberries are susceptible to both bacterial and fungal diseases, such as:

• Botrytis
• Pythium
• Phytophthora
• Fusarium
• Downy mildew
• Powdery mildew

Due to the wide variety of threats, the use of commercial chemical pesticides and fungicides is almost unavoidable with strawberries, especially if growing at a large scale.

However, co-planting strawberries with garlic can be useful, as the garlic will keep smaller pests away. Slugs and similar creatures can also be distracted by citrus sources, such as scattering orange rinds around the plants.

In addition, encouraging predators to hang around your fields — such as establishing owl boxes — can help prevent lossage to larger scavengers like rodents and small birds.

Harvesting and Post-Harvest Handling

To harvest strawberries successfully, care is needed. Strawberries are fragile and easily damaged, both at harvest and during any storage and shipment.

Identifying ripe fruit is easy: they're fully red, with no remaining green or white on the fruit. This will typically be 4-6 weeks after flowering. Once harvest season begins, fruits should be harvested every 2-3 days for peak freshness.

Strawberries are delicate; do not pull the fruit directly. Instead pinch or cut the stem slightly above the fruit, to protect it from bruising. The fruit must be harvested by hand unless you're experimenting with new machine-friendly species. Unfortunately, harvest costs will likely cut into your final profit.

If possible, avoid harvesting in the rain, as wet berries will be highly susceptible to mold.

Once picked, the strawberries should be moved into refrigerated storage ASAP. They should be kept just above freezing, around 33° F to 35°F, along with high humidity, to maximize their shelf life. If putting them into boxes or cases for shipment, the cases must be well-padded to prevent damage during shipping.

For smaller operations, it's typically better to sell directly to local shops or the public, rather than attempting long-distance shipment. "U-Pick" public harvests are another popular option, allowing you to significantly reduce your labor requirements, even if it means selling the fruit at a discount.

When you have questions, we'll help you find the answers you need to take control of your fields and the harvest you care about. Contact Cropler to discover more about our products and the ways we help you proactively protect your operations from the effects of crop diseases. Learn more

The Future of Strawberries

Strawberry breeding is also an active field, with new varieties being introduced regularly. Breeding in resistance to disease or pests is a high priority — such as new species introduced by UC Davis with fungal resistance. Interest is also high in creating firmer fruit which can be mechanically picked and shipped more easily.

Strawberry farmers should follow announcements of new breeds closely, as they can help improve your yields.

Strawberries are also popular for hydroponics and other vertical farming systems. If you're space-limited, newer breeds may be able to produce substantial yields while still having minimal space requirements. Combined with new biostimulants and targeted fertilization, this is looking to be an exciting new area of strawberry farming.

In addition, farms are increasingly adding smart AI-powered systems such as agri-cameras that monitor fields 24/7 and send constant data back to a central server. When combined with soil moisture and nutrient monitoring, this gives high-tech farms substantial insights into their strawberry harvests, and how to optimize them in future seasons.

Improve Your Harvest With Cropler

Cropler is making next-generation technology available for farms and gardens of all sizes. Our crop monitoring and tracking system is affordable, and rugged, and sends all collected data to a simplified Internet-connected dashboard. You'll be able to monitor your crops in real-time, from anywhere, while also digging deep into data that will help optimize future plantings.

Contact us to learn more about how Cropler can help you and make the future of farming accessible!

Resources

1. Iowa State University. What are the differences between the different types of strawberries?
2. Effects of strawberry resistance and genotypic diversity on aphids and their natural enemies. April 2022. Biological Control 170(8):104919. DOI:10.1016/j.biocontrol.2022.104919
3. Univercity of Minnesota Extension. Strawberry nutrient management.
4. College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. UCD Eclipse strawberries grown in Santa Maria, CA. Credit: Jael Mackendorf / UC Davis. UC Davis Releases 5 Strawberry Varieties Resistant to Deadly Fungal Disease