Modern technologies in strawberry.  Introduction to strawberries:

Strawberries are a non-traditional vegetable crop belonging to the Rosaceae family. All commercial strawberry cultivars currently known are due to the specific cross between Fragaria virginiana and Fragaria chiloensis.
Fragaria virginiana Fragaria chiloensis

Therefore, all the varieties that have arisen from the specific cross between them are known by the scientific name Fragaria X ananassa, and strawberries are considered one of the horticultural crops with an excellent return for farms compared to other traditional orchard crops. They are successfully exported either fresh, frozen, or processed.
 
The most essential factors influencing strawberry farming success
Variety-planting date-soil type-irrigation water-planting system (frozen or fresh seedlings)-resistance to insect and disease pests crop service operations from planting until the end of harvest.



In particular, strawberries are one of the most important horticultural crops that have witnessed a clear advancement in recent times, whether in the delta lands or outside. Its cultivation has developed in the last two decades thanks to the continuous effort of researchers at the Strawberry Development Center at the Faculty of Agriculture, Ain Shams University, in cooperation with researchers at the Agricultural Research Center at the Ministry of Agriculture and Messrs. Members of the Supervisory Committee of the Strawberry Crop at the Ministry of Agriculture have taken clear and successful steps in the field of cultivation, production, and export of strawberries after their cultivation was restricted to limited places in some fields of Qalubia farmers in the municipal variety.



Then, the American varieties were introduced, evaluated, and published as the best, but it took work to export. The crop from these areas is due to the late harvest (March) and the failure to obtain high-quality fruits for export. This cultivation method is known as the "frigo system" (cultivation with frozen seedlings).

Egypt has a comparative advantage in its climate, allowing strawberries to be exported from November to March.



So, attention has recently focused on producing strawberries for export by cultivating them with the brush farming system (cultivating fresh seedlings), and the Egyptian strawberry now occupies a superior rank among the strawberry exporting countries from November to March.



Strawberries were exported to most European and Gulf countries from the beginning of November until the end of April. Egyptian strawberry exports reached Russia in northern Europe, south to South Africa, east to Singapore and Japan, and west to the United States of America (the original strawberries' home).



Every year, the demand for Egyptian strawberries increases in the export market. Egypt's exports of fresh fruits in 2020 and 2021 amounted to about 400,000 tons on an area of 55,000 acres of cultivation for export.



A plan has been developed to increase the areas of nurseries dedicated to the production of fresh seedlings specifically for export and to increase export farms, as well as introduce modern programs for the advancement of small farmers in terms of providing them with new varieties, adopting integrated pest control technology, and introducing modern technologies in service, care, and post-harvest transactions.

 

Production and land area of strawberries

The cultivated area in Egypt in 2020 and 2021 amounted to about 55,000 feddans (only fifty-five thousand feddans). Its cultivation is concentrated in Beheira, Qalyubia, Ismailia, Sharkia, Menoufia, Gharbia, Giza, and New Valley governorates.

The Ministry of Agriculture has been given this special crop attention during the past ten years, which has had the most significant impact on increasing the productivity of the feddan and increasing the income of farms as a result of the following factors:
We are introducing modern varieties with high yield and fruit quality specifications, especially tolerance to circulation (Festival et al., and others).
Modern strawberry cultivation systems are being introduced in Egypt.
Local production of seedlings in large quantities and to technical specifications at a reasonable price results in lower production costs.
Cohesion between the different research agencies, agricultural extension, and strawberry growers led to great confidence among them in this field and its reflection on the increase in production.
Establishing the central laboratory for pesticide residues and providing it with the latest devices to detect pesticide residues in the exported fruits means the results will come out within 24 hours, facilitating export.
 Handling strawberries
Nutritional value

Strawberries are a vegetable crop high in ascorbic acid (60 mg/100 g), niacin (0.6 mg/100 g), potassium (158 mg/100 g), iron (1 mg/100 g), riboflavin (0.7 g), and carbohydrates (8 g/100 g), with fructose accounting for the majority of the sugars.

Strawberry vegetative description
The strawberry plant has a simple, fibrous root system from short, thick stems (crowns) near the soil's surface. Each plant produces 20–35 roots.

The plant's main stem is short, thick, and woody (the crown), bearing the leaves at the nodes, and the plant grows vertically by forming new stems (secondary crowns) emerging from the leaf axes crowded around the main stem. The buds on the main stem are active in the leaf axils under long-day conditions, forming running stems on the soil's surface.

They are known as runners that touch the soil and form roots, and a new plant starts from the second node that can be separated after that or installed in the absence of the hollow. They are called daughter plants or flowers under short-day conditions; the leaves are triangular compounds on the short stem, and the flowers are in racemic inflorescences. The flowers are either hermaphrodite or feminine, and some cultivars have male flowers and are cross-pollinated.


The fruit of the strawberry is aggregated and consists of a juicy, enlarged flowerbed. The natural fruits are poor achene immersed in the fleshy epithelium, which is covered.
 
Strawberry cultivars in Egypt:

I started writing research papers in different places and within horticultural studies, and some researchers from the Horticultural Research Institute, Plant Disease Research Institute, Agricultural Research and Science Institute, Ministry of Agriculture, and some Egyptian universities participated in their evaluation.



Here are some of the cultivars grown so far and proven successful:
1-Sweet Charlie:
 

The plant is short-grown and well-grown; the plant, the growth, and the whole are grown from strawberries.

 

2-Fortuna: فراوله  صنف فرتونا
A short-day cultivar with large, glossy fruits is a new variety to be evaluated.

 

3-Camarosa:
A short day with vegetative solid growth, a large green color, a large size, and a high sugar content is suitable for export. It now occupies large areas between strawberry varieties and is suitable for cultivation and freezing, and its crop begins in frozen crops in the middle of circulation and storage.

4: Rosalinda:
On the islands, temperatures are lower during the cooler days.

 

5-Albion:
The fruits are similar to the Demont cultivar in shape and size, but the foliage is open at the top. Fruits are cone-shaped, solid, and red on the outside and dark on the inside. Verticillium and Phytophthora are wilted-resistant and relatively resistant to anthracnose. A photo-neutral cultivar ideal for processing, replacing the Diamont cultivar

 

6-Portola:
Famous picture: Show by Albion It gives flowers in large botanical quantities. Its fruits are similar to Albion, which are shiny, hardy, and resistant to fungal diseases.

 

7-San Andreas:
Optically, it is close to Albion, outweighs its strength in the vegetative growth stage, and is similar to it in the flowering and fruiting stages. Its extension is small in the fruiting field. The fruits benefit from the best exercise in the production stage.

 

8-Benicia:
It is known under another name, C-225. The plant is medium-vigorous in vegetative growth. The size of the plant is smaller than the size of the plant. The smallest size is a large size, light-dark white on the inside.

 

9-Florida:
In a shorter variety, the fruits are conical, the color is dark red and shiny, and the inner color is red, solid, and has excellent taste.

10-Sensation:
A cultivar with a dense vegetative group is planted relatively farther than the rest of the cultivars. It has a high early yield, excellent fruit size and hardness, and good eating characteristics. The fruits are excellent for processing.

 

Strawberry nursery cultivation
The nursery is planted with Super Elite seedlings approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and produced directly from tissue culture mothers.

 

 

The seedlings are usually planted in plastic cups with a capacity of 150 or 200 milliliters, with a mixture of house environment moss, vermiculite, and sand in a ratio of 1:1:1. Each bale of house moss and vermiculite adds to the sand: 50 g of Topsin + 50 g of Fertemic + 100 gm of ammonia sulfate + 15 g of magnesium sulfate + 5 g of iron, zinc, and manganese mixture + 3 kg of tile powder. Their moisture becomes suitable.

 

Then they are left for 24 hours. The seedlings were disinfected before planting in containers by immersion for 20 minutes in a solution of Topsin at a rate of 1 g per liter of water, then seeded in cups and, after planting, placed in a greenhouse.

Serving and caring for seedlings in the greenhouse

Due to its rapid drying, irrigation must be taken care of in the greenhouse, especially the cups around the edges and the sea side of the greenhouse.

Also, the early flowers must be removed first, and the roots should be covered if the upper part is revealed with a mixture from the same cultivation environment. The seedlings must be sprayed with one of the compound fertilizers 19: 19: 19 or 20: 20: 20: every two days at a rate of 1 g/liter.

The seedlings must be transferred after 18–21 days to the nursery land and planted with string and peg after making the incisions at distances from 1 m to 2 m between the plants and each other, as well as the row and the other according to the type of soil where they usually give daytime varieties.

We always plant neutral quantities of seedlings in the nursery because it always tends to give flowers such as Albion, Bertola, and San Andreas varieties, so they are distributed at fewer distances to give a large number of seedlings.
 In contrast, we plant short-day varieties such as Chandler-Sweet Charlie-Camarosa-Florida.
Over long distances, it is 1.5–2 m, which usually gives a more significant number of runners and seedlings in the nursery. The seedlings must be well irrigated before being transferred to prevent withering. After planting, the fertilization program begins immediately after 3–4 days of planting at a rate of 2 kg ammonia sulfate + 1 kg potassium sulfate + 200 cm phosphoric acid three times a week.

These quantities are increased with the start of the outflow of the purlins, their growth, and the size of the seedlings.

Liquid compound fertilizers can be used in fertilizing by adding 500 cm3 of fertilizer per m3 of irrigation water, provided that the fertilizer is installed in advance to make 100 liters of fertilizer as follows:
 
What month is best to plant strawberries?
The ideal time to plant strawberries is after all danger of frost has passed in early spring, usually in March or April.

 

Strawberry Notebook (Nurseries and Production)

first arboretum

Arboretum land

1. The soil must be salinity-free so the EC does not increase by about one millimose (640 ppm).

2: The suitable land for a strawberry nursery is sandy or yellow, and the percentage of calcium carbonate in it should not exceed 12%.

3. It is preferable that the source of irrigation be through a deep well, even if the land is close to the canals, so as not to be contaminated with diseases and weed seeds transmitted through the canals' water and the dissolved salinity in the irrigation water is about 600 parts per million. Multiple filters

At least 1.5 meters of sandy soil should be free of clay layers, rocks, and gravel so that the sandy soil is at least 1.5 meters deep.

5: The nursery land is isolated with a reed fence that prevents winds that may transfer weed seeds, other pests, and dust so that it is at least 5 km from the production land.

6: The nursery ground should not contain snake worms, insects, or nematodes.

 

Preparing the nursery land for cultivation

1. Establishing a primary sprinkler irrigation network on the nursery grounds. In the case of limestone soil, it is sometimes recommended to install a drip net in addition to the sprinkler.



2: Plowing the land longitudinally and transversely, deeply

3. Putting organic fertilizers at a rate of 10 m3 per feddan of poultry manure + 30 m3 of decomposed organic fertilizer.



4: Irrigation of the land before sterilization

Five chemical fertilizers are added: calcium superphosphate, potassium sulfate, ammonium sulfate, and sulfur.



6-sterilizing the soil with methyl bromide gas at a rate of 210 kg per feddan by hot or cold method and covering it with transparent plastic for 48–72 hours immediately after sterilization, which is the ideal way to eliminate fungal diseases, nematodes, insects, seeds, and rhizomes of weeds in the soil.



7: After the sterilization period ends, the plastic is lifted, and the land is irrigated abundantly several times to remove the effect of methyl bromide from the soil.



8: The dry land is connected to the irrigation network by a sprinkler so that between the sprinkler and the other is a 6 x 6 m or 6 x 9 m, depending on the type of sprinkler and the pressure of the irrigation pump. The land is irrigated with sprinklers until the soil is cultivated.


Specifications of seedlings and methods of planting nurseries

The seedlings should be of the super-elite rank resulting from tissue culture.
It should be free from all diseases and pests and have a certificate from the tissue lab to indicate its source.
The seedlings are soaked in a solution of Topsen, Benlite, or Rezolex for 20 minutes before planting. A mixture of mineral fertilizers and agricultural sulfur may be added at the rates recommended for the planting mixture.
The diameter of the crown should be about 0.8–1 cm.
Planting distances range from 1 x 1.5 meters to 1.5 x 1.5 meters depending on the variety, planting date, soil type, and seedling production purpose (Um Afrigo brushes).
 
The date of planting the nursery

The nursery is planted to produce fresh seedlings in March or April, and the plants are taken off by mid-August when the nursery is planted to produce seedlings prepared for frozen storage. The seedlings are taken off in December or January to be placed in refrigerators until the following September.



The seedlings may be planted in plastic cups containing an environment of peat moss, vermiculite, and sand (40–20%), provided that the mixture contains benlite at a rate of 50 g/bale or topsin at a rate of 1 g/l so that a small part of the crown appears above the surface of the root environment. A mixture of mineral fertilizers and agricultural sulfur at the recommended rates may be added to the planting mixture.

When two leaves appear on the seedlings, the foliar feeding program and preventive spraying against root, crown, leaf, and nematode diseases begin until the planting date on the permanent land.


FAQs: Modern Technologies in Strawberry
Q: How does precision agriculture benefit strawberry cultivation?
Precision agriculture optimizes resource use, leading to improved yield, reduced environmental impact, and enhanced overall crop health.

Q: Can hydroponics be implemented on a small scale for home gardening?
Yes, hydroponics can be adapted for small-scale home gardening, providing a space-efficient and controlled environment for strawberry cultivation.

Q: What role does IoT monitoring play in preventing strawberry diseases?
IoT monitoring provides real-time data, enabling early detection of unfavorable conditions and potential diseases, allowing for prompt intervention.

Q: Are genetically enhanced strawberries safe for consumption?
Yes, extensive testing ensures the safety of genetically enhanced strawberries for consumption, and they undergo rigorous regulatory scrutiny.

Q: How do automated harvesting systems impact labor in strawberry farms?
Automated harvesting systems reduce labor dependency, allowing farmers to allocate resources more efficiently and focus on strategic aspects of cultivation.

Q: Is vertical farming suitable for regions with limited agricultural space?
Absolutely, vertical farming is an excellent solution for regions with limited space, enabling efficient use of available land for strawberry cultivation.