We are in the middle of the 2nd big flush of fruit production. After pruning the remaining small fruits at the end of first flush in November, we had the 2nd peak of flowers in December followed by fruit production beginning in January.  This almost two months of ‘gap’ between flush of fruit production will be an issue for commercial applications and this needs to be resolved by combinations of cultivars (varieties) as well as cultural management. For commercial production, use of varied timing of pruning and crown thinning may be able to allow fruit production more evenly spreading over seasons.

We also noticed that between the two systems we use, Styrofoam trough supports more overall vigor of plants and fruit production possibly due to better root zone environments. We cannot be conclusive without further analyses but that is so far the observation.

As another note, we scheduled the 2nd AZ Strawberry Day for those who missed the first event.  The date is set as Saturday February 22nd, due to the classroom availability. For  more information, please see our event page in this website.