Development of containerized strawberry transplants for Florida's winter production system

The Florida strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.) industry faces many challenges today and in the near future. Many of the challenges arise from the use of non-uniform bare-root transplants which have variability in flowering, are often infected with pathogens, and require extensive overhead sprinkler irrigation for establishment. The development of a plug (containerized) transplant system could eliminate many of these problems. In this work, plug transplants were propagated in three container cell sizes (75, 150, and 300 cm(3)) and grown at two temperature regimes (25/15 and 35/25 degrees C day/night) for two weeks prior to transplanting. Bare-root transplants from Massachusetts and Florida were graded into small, medium, and large size plants based on crown size. Plug transplants grown at 25/15 degrees C flowered earlier than transplants with any other treatment and led to greater early fruit production in November, as well as greater total production. Bare-root transplants propagated in Massachusetts resulted in greater fruit production in December than bare-root transplants propagated in Florida. Bare-root transplants from Florida resulted in greater fruit production in January than bare-root transplants from Massachusetts, however, total production of bare-root transplants from Florida and Massachusetts were not significantly different. Larger plugs, grown at 25/15 degrees C, resulted in significantly greater total production than transplants grown from smaller plugs whereas larger bare-root transplants from Massachusetts had greater production only in December. Therefore, the development of containerized plug transplants has the potential of increasing early season production while decreasing problems encountered with bare-root transplants.