Strawberry planting substrates

Strawberry planting

In December 2019 we had a great holiday in South Korea. One of the day trips included a trip to a strawberry farm (I can't recall it's name or location now) but the strawberries were big, sweet and juicy. Nothing like what you get in supermarkets in Singapore. I was hooked.

So, some strawberry seeds were saved. And we also had a few from a kit that LL bought in Singapore. These were Alpine strawberry seeds from Paris Garden, and I think it originated in HK.

The first seeds were sown in the pink pot on 26 December 2019, straight after we got back from Langkawi.

The Paris Garden kit came with a flat peat pellet that swelled with hydration and was placed in the pink pot. It only took a week before the Alpine strawberry seeds germinated. These gave rise to very small, fragile looking seedlings with the 2 cotyledons.

The Korean strawberry plants germinated later, perhaps about 2-3 weeks later. They were stouter with thicker stems and leaves.

As the seedlings grew, I attempted to transfer them to individual coffee cups, with no success. Those cups were filled with a generic potting mix with the Bio-flora brand. Within a day or so of transferring, the seedlings would wilt and die. I must have killed 8 or 9 seedlings this way, wondering what the matter was. Was it my method? Was it the substrate? Was there too much fertiliser in the substrate or was there some kind of pathogen in it?

Other substrates were tried. Coconut peat/coir, and finally a soilless seedling mix called Horti-mix, which seemed to do the trick. This seemed to be primarily peat based, but with perlite and some small clay lumps mixed in.

Along the way, it was clear that successful transfer/transplantation required several things done correctly.

1. The roots must not be disturbed. ie try to transfer the plant with the root ball as undisturbed as possible. So I used a plastic knife to cut the substrate around the roots, and then a plastic spoon to scoop up the seedling and its roots with attached/surrounding soil.
2. Use a soilless peat based substrate. Unfortunately compost/generic potting mixes carry pathogens, and in my experience so far, strawberry plants are very susceptible to these. The worst thing that happened was when one plant, which had just started to flower, died because of wilt.