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My name is Wenjing Guan.
I am the horticultural specialist at the Southwest Purdue Agriculture Center.
In this video we are talking about growing strawberries in soil in a high tunnel.
The strawberries around me were planted in September last year.
And we are harvesting them now in April.
A few things make us think this production system has a high potential
First, these plants have a great potential to achieve a high yield.
This is because after the plug plants were planted in fall last year,
they were continuously growing in fall and into the winter.
The protection provided by the high tunnels in the winter,
especially during sunny days allow the temperatures to stay high
that allow the plants to continuously grow into the winter, initiate flowers and develop roots.
All of these support a good harvest in the spring. The second advantage of growing strawberry in
the tunnel system is the advanced harvest.
We noticed in southern Indiana, we typically enter the peak harvest around middle April, especially on early cultivars
And if growing a combination of early, middle and late cultivars.
harvest could last entire April and May.
Typically we end harvest in May.
This is because entering into June, the temperatures inside the high tunnl can be too high.
to the level to damage fruit (reduce quality).
And another reason is typically at the end of May and early June,
the field strawberries are ripe, so the value of growing strawberries in the tunnel is reduced.
The third advantage we observed of the system is because there is no free water, no rain inside of the tunnel.
so the foliar disease pressue is significantly reduced.
Another big advantage we saw for the system is the reduced production risk, especially for spring frost damage.
with the protection of the structure, in addition to using floating row covers
typically we do not have problem due to the late-spring frost.
as I said, we start to harvest in April, so the full bloom happens in March. We have went through a few heavy frosts
in March. But with addition of floating row covers, we did not loss any flowers.
Last but not least, strawberries grown in high tunenl have a high quality
the fruit is much cleaner than the berries from growing outside in the open field.
Another thing makes us feel growing strawberries in high tunnel has a great potential,
that is from a high tunnel management aspect
More and more high tunnels are built in our areas. The crops most commonly grown in tunnels are tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers
They are great crops for high tunnels, high yields, high market value. Those crops are warm-season crops, they like the heat.
they are planted in spring, production season last from summer to fall.
They like the heat in the summer, that's the best time to grow these crops. But strawberry is different. The production season for the
strawberry is from fall, winter to spring.
what this means is growing strawberry in the tunnel free the summer month
and really in the summer, we could do a lot of great things to help manage the tunnel,
for example, growing cover crops to improve soil fertility
or apply soil disinfection techniques. Those are environmental friendly ways to control pests
so with that consideration, strawberry has a great potential as a rotational crop in the high tunnel system
We have being exploring this system for a few years, and we definitely learned a lot. We figured out the varieties
have the highest yield potential of growing in the system. We learned a lot over the years.
there are definitely more questions were raised and need additional research to figure out.
Pest management is a big thing.
I mentioned earlier this production system help with foliar disease but not really for the insect pests.
Some of the major insect pests we noticed are
two-spotted spider mites, aphids
In the fall, armyworms can be limitations of the system
We have built a strong team to work on the pest management.
Dr. Laura Ingwell is doing research to develop a pest management program for this strawberry production system
We also notice after continually growing strawberry in the soil, we are building up soilborne diseases,
Dr. Dan Egel is keeping a close eye on what we might see in the system.
On the cultural aspect, also, there is a lot of things we still need to learn.
one of the things is that we noticed the early cultivar might flower in the winter
This is not a good thing becuase those flowers can be easily killed in the winter by low temperatures.
we are thinking to manipulate the planting date,
trying to avoid those cultivars flower in the winter but maximize the yield
in the spring. Another aspect is the taste. It is very important to achieve a balance between high yield and good taste.
We found varieties selection
and fertility management is the key to achieve this balance.
Our team is excited about this project and we are continuing research to figure out a lot of the things.
Hopefully in the next a few years, we will develop a comprehensive production guide for you
to grow strawberry in the tunnels.