Penn State publishes plasticulture strawberry variety trial report
The planting was established in August 2014 and the first harvest was in 2015. Following harvest half of the plants were thinned by removing approximately 50% of the crown by hand. The purpose was to determine whether there is a benefit to this practice when carrying over plasticulture plantings for a second harvest year.
The 2016 season was generally wet the entire harvest period (total rainfall 4.1 inches in 5 weeks) which necessitated use of a standard fungicide program. In addition, the temperatures were well above normal with 15 consecutive days of 80º+ starting the second week of harvest and two 90º+ days in the last week of harvest. There were also some early flower losses because of the weather. High temperatures of 79º and 78º on April 1 and 2 were followed by low temperatures of 18º and 22º on April 6 and 10. Even under two rowcovers on these cold nights the most developed king blossoms were killed on the earliest varieties, particularly ‘Sweet Charlie’.
Harvest started on May 13 with ‘Chandler’ and one of the Rutgers selections; ‘Sweet Charlie’, ‘Daroyal’ and a second Rutgers selection started on May 16; ‘Earliglow’, and ‘Radiance’ started May 18; ‘Galletta’ May 20; ‘Rubicon’, ‘Wendy’, two Cornell selections and the last Rutgers selection on May 23; ‘Donna’, ‘Flavorfest’, and ‘Sonata’ on May 25 and on May 27 the final Cornell selection started harvest.
The thinning treatment generally affected yield and the percentage of marketable fruit, but had no effect on berry size or brix (soluble solids) levels. Thus data presented below for yields and percentage marketable fruit are given for unthinned and thinned treatments respectively, but are averaged over thinning treatment for berry size and soluble solids.
Click here for the full results.