Careful planting is very important for early fruit and good fruit production.
You cannot make early strawberries from plants with damaged root systems, and damaged roots can allow plant disease problems to overtake the plant while the plant repairs and forms new roots. Moisture is very important to the new plant. If the roots of the new plant ever dry too much, the roots will be quickly damaged, and will never function to grow the plant. This is very, very important for early plantings. New leaves require the plant to absorb increasing amounts of moisture.