I have never owned a hydroponic system until now and would like to get some tips on how to grow strawberry's hydroponically.

I am currently experimenting with strawberries. I bought some plants from a garden centre, lightly rinsed the loose soil from around the root ball and then placed the root ball into a 5"pot containing a mixture of vermiculite and perlite. I then placed a dripper dripping the nutrient solution. The solution is recovered and recirculated. So far so good. When the plant produces runners I intend to root these directly into rockwool cubes.

Hope this is of value
Cameron

I have successfully grown hydroponic strawberries and they did quite well. From nursery to picking in approx 45 days. This was in a trough (rain gutter) NFT constant flow system indoors under light. The berries at first picking were pretty healthy though showed signs of mildew then quickly quit bearing and started to rot at the crown from the constant contact with water. Would suggest some other method as the crowns must be kept dry.

Jim Curts Soggy NW OREGON

Stawberries are a pain to grow hydroponically. If you do find a good method or you want to try. Avoid using silicone such as a pyrolite clay or protekt. It causes them to turn albino for some strange reason.
Goood Luck!!!

I KNOW OF SOMEBODY WHO IS GROWING THEM SUCCESSFULLY IN VERTIGRO TOWERS WITH A PERLITE/COIR MEDIA.

grow strawberries in expanded clay balls using recurculating drip system.feed 15 min every 1.5 hr making sure dripper is not wetting plant.

this is a method that works with anything.
take a water bottle or pop bottle and cut the top off 2/3 up the bottle. take a long piece of cloth like an old t shirt and tie it into a ball big enough not to go through the top hole but with a lead long enough to reach the bottom when the top is inverted and put back into the bottom.

fill the top with soil and put your plants in the soil.
fill the bottom with a good hydroponic firtilizer at half strength. be shure not to fill high enough for the water to reach the top sticking down.

thats it. this will grow quickly and uses the best of both worlds.

I have some pictures of the strawberry system out of Orlando. The system is a vertical drip with styrofoam baskets held in place by the pvc pipe that runs up through the center. The pvc pipe is carring the nutrients up to the top basket. The baskets are square, and each basket is rotated 90 degrees from the one above to allow a plant enough room to grow up and out in each corner. Each basket holds 4 plants. There were about 10 baskets in each stack. It didn't look like the baskets were being reused. The medium they were using was some mix containing some coconut husk and some other fiberous materials. I got a shot of the bag as well. These units were being used at a place where people pick their own vegis and save a little on the price. chuck

Donna,
Look up the website for the national agricultural library. They're site has a search feature for a zillion research papers with a short abstract usually included for each. You can find out from the abstracts who wrote the papers and where they were published. Connect with a local college library to see if they have the publications or if they can borrow them for you. I have a monster binder full of info on hydroponic strawberries, but none of it is here with me right now. The folks at Cornell have done a lot of research on this already and are usually pretty nice to talk with. Check their hort dept. or extension website. If I think of it later this week I'll find some info. and email you.

I've got a couple of strawberries (among other things) growing in 4' PVC, and they seem quite content. Good foliage and fruit production, and no apparent problems so far. See my system at the link below for info.....

Here is a link that might be useful: stevenb204

If you want a good crop, don't root the runners; cut them off. Runners suck up the plants' energy that it should be putting into fruiting. Also, don't keep a plant for more than three seasons; they're really depleted after that. The second season will be best. What I used to is let my third season plants produce runners, and get new plants that way. (My mother farmed strawberries throughout her childhood)

I really think that that Frank's response about the cut 2 liter bottle is a really neat idea Im willing to try myself. I think wicking up the solution to the bottom of the roots is a great way to get constant nutrients and still have the soil.

Thanks for the neat suggestion!

I wish I could give you more advice about Hydroponics. I know that you should definitely keep plants grown in full water out of the sun because of algae.

Hi, I am trying strawberrys in my system now. So far, they are doing fine. I have some pictures if you want to take a peek. chuck

Here is a link that might be useful: Mar 2002 pics

well i was feeling ambitious the other day and I grabbed a strawberry plant from my garden, rather small and with only 3 sets of leaves, I took abottle filled it with water added a couple drops of fish emulsion and made sure to situate the crown above the water holding it in place with a wad of paper towlthe roots are submerged and there is a new runner appearing, what should i change or will it work what am i doing wrong (if anything)It looks pretty happy no wilting i think its looking pretty good, and it looks neat :)

can you tell me, please, what strawberry variety are you growing in your hydroponic system? thank you.

I grow Ozark Beauty ...an everbearer in a home made hydro setup....check my web site

http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/hydroponic/new_for_2003.htm

how long do strawberries take from seed to picking the friut in hydro set up

Joe_Farmer

Am interested the vertical growing of strawberries hydroponically. Would like any info. or web site suggestions.

I have been trying strawberries in 4" PVC but this year I am using the verticle system. Am ordering pots from www.hydrostacker.com and from www.vertigro.com to see which I like the best. I am also making my own home made stackable pots.

Sorry to post on such an old link, but this strawberry post seemed to have the most comments. I have spent many an hour picking strawberries since my grandmother grew them commercially. The constant squatting involved in picking large quantities is hard on the knees. A good strawberry picker picks the ripe fruit, as opposed to the convenient nearby green fruit, which involves more squatting time. I personally would not use vertical towers for growing large amounts of strawberries because of the bending factor. They are probably good for small quantities, however & do save space. Vertical towers are also very expensive to purchase, unless one builds their own system.

Here is a hydroponic strawberry article using an overhead gutter system:

http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/nov98/hydro1198.htm

I have some pictures of hydroponic vertigro pilot in rockwool and NFT. Is someone interested to put that on the net, becouse I don t have home page.

I grew strawberries from root with little trouble using 4 inch pvc flood and drain system. I used course sand as the medium in styrofoam cups. The bigest problem I had was heavy rain would wash some of the sand into the pipes. The fruit was very sweet. My system was a 90 site "saw horse" type using only 5' wide and 8' long. During the really hot times of the year the plants in the back grew better because of the shade. I did not get a second year because they all froze during the winter..

i want to clone my runners.. how do i do this.. do i use a hydro base clonning sulution and then put them in rock wool and have them on a easy cloner so that they root and then put them back into the ground.

Not entirley sure with hydroponics but if you stick the runner in some medium leaving it attached to the parent, it should root on its own.

daisyd681 wrote:
. . . if you stick the runner in some medium leaving it attached to the parent, it should root on its own.

It does. Just keep the medium moist, and try to keep the young shoot in position (paper clips, cable ties, . . ) while it is still attached to the mother.

I use a constant flow aero/nft type system. Like someone said you def have to try to not let the crown get too saturated, when the plant has lots of roots below the crown you will be just fine but until then..... Keep your water level low, or hand water until you have nice root formation, I used hydroton and it seemed to work excellent. Good luck.

Looks to me as if this post has been hangin' around for quite some time!

I've been trying to grow strawberries for a LONG time and the ONLY thing I've come up with that works without all the hassles is to buy a bunch of starts from the nursery, plant them in perlite and set the pot(s) in a 10 x 20 tray with about a half inch of nutrient and just leave them be.

They seem to love it. One thing I can tell you for sure: strawberries don't like their feet wet.

The perlite lets them grow in a moist environment, but allows a lot of free oxygen to get to the roots. The roots seem to grow only slightly beyond the bottom of the pots and as yet haven't posed any problems.

I top water with nutrient at 6.2 or 6.3 pH and an EC of around 1.6 +- that has been stored with 24/7 aeration. So far, so good; and believe me, I've tried about 5 or 6 different methods including ramp, NFT, DWC, aeroponics, dirt and probably more. Lots of problems until I tried the perlite in 4" pots growing in a "static" system sitting on shelves in my greenhouse.

I grow potatoes the same way!

I'm fairly disgusted with both strawberries and tomatoes; still I forge ahead.

I'm just finishing up a "no-brainer" aeroponics setup. It utilizes a solar panel to keep a 12-volt lawn tractor battery charged, which runs the nutrient-distribution pump. I've designed my own spray nozzle system, too

I've come up with a clever timer that turns a 12-volt Rule 500 bilge pump on for 12 seconds each minute 24/7, which is an attempt to both water while at the same time expose the roots to oxygen. The nutrient drains out the bottom of the growers and down a trough, through a filter (cotton or fiberglass) and back into the sump.

The only thing I should (?) have to worry about is keeping the nutrient tank full; all the rest is automatic. It's not actually operational yet, but will be this week if everything goes according to Hoyle.

When it goes down, I'll post the results here and on my Web page. Wish me luck!

What is everyone doing out there with hydroponic strawberry plants after they�ve produced fruit? Do you simulate winter in any way? I know the runners need to be refrigerated after they have rooted well, but what about the mother plant that still has a couple seasons left? Does it somehow need a dormancy period simulated?