More than 100 different strawberry cultivars exist worldwide. Cultivars are usually bred to have favorable traits, such as high yield, large berries, good flavor or disease resistance. However, the environment in which a strawberry cultivar grows and the way you manage it has a large impact on how it will perform.
We call this principle in horticulture GxExM (Genetics x Environment x Management). And while we have a fairly solid understanding of which strawberry cultivar performs well under field conditions in North Carolina, we barely have any knowledge when it comes down to strawberry greenhouses. In greenhouses, the environment and management changes significantly from field conditions.
This is exactly where Joy’s project begins. She investigates the performance of seven strawberry cultivars in a commercial greenhouse operation in Eastern North Carolina. All of them were selected because we know they have favorable traits outdoors. But how do they perform in a greenhouse, with a picking season almost three times longer than in a typical field operation in North Carolina? Joy is evaluating plant physiology as well as fruiting behavior, yield and fruit firmness and primary chemistry in a commercial strawberry greenhouse in Eastern North Carolina. The cultivars that she evaluates are ‘Albion’, ‘Monterey’, ‘Sweet Charlie’, ‘Brilliance’, ‘Radiance’, ‘Camino Real’ and ‘Fronteras’. This is pretty exciting, and while it is too early to talk about results, you should be on the watch out for the next video some time in Summer, when we talk about what we found out.
