i asked the same question here a few days ago, got no response and i thought it was a pretty simple question, but looks like from the lack of response, either no one else here grows strawberries, or like us, are clueless. ;)

what i ended up doing is leaving the fairly young leaves that are overly huge/old looking and left the healthy young green leaves that aren't touching the ground. my guess is if they have some healthy foliage they will get off to a quicker start start than if you trimmed everything off. my june bearing started flowering very quickly after coming out of dormancy.

Stevie, I just answered your question about removing leaves in the other post -- I only remove damaged leaves.

Don, OTOH, seems to be asking about culling entire plants. I always removed plants that were obviously old and weak, but as long as they look good and were productive, I'd leave them. I'd also cull excessive runners or those runners that root in a bad spot.

I take a crude approach with a larger matted row of strawberries. If I planted in 2015 I pick off all flowers the first year to stimulate runner production. More runners that attach means more daughter plants and higher production. Many people limit runners to 8 in that year since you are usually hand cultivating that year.

In 2016 you harvest your best crop if all goes well.

As soon as production is over mow off the plants high enough that crowns are not damaged. Then cultivate leaving about only 10-12" row remaining. Plants will regrow runners in summer/fall 2016 which should be directed to the cultivated soil areas to attach. This process is repeated in subsequent years and you could cultivate offset from the original row(s) to remove older plants.

This is probably to crude for what you wanted to hear. I never pick individual leaves from plants or bother to place runners after first year. If you can keep the cycle going for 4 years it is often time to replant.

Many growers nowadays plant dayneutral varieties on plastic mulch in July, remove all runners that form and harvest only the following year from the original plants.