Thoughts on Attracting Beneficials
The growing season is winding down and most of the planting has been done for spring. This includes more plants for “hover island”. A part of this process is doing the research to first figure out what we are trying to achieve and secondly choosing, ordering and planting the plants for this plan.
At lot of time is spent with online searches. One of the things I was struck with is the strategy that is used by seed companies who offer seed mixtures for beneficial gardens. For a time I actually considered offering a seed mixture customized for strawberry production. The strategy seems to be to throw in seeds for all plants known to attract beneficials including bees, predators and parasites. One interesting thing about the mixtures that I looked at was that many included what I would consider weeds. Several times I thought to myself, I wouldn’t want my neighbor planting this mixture. Next thing would be their weed seeds infesting my lawn and garden.
This realization helped me to adjust my planning. Because strawberries are an early season crop I started my search for plants that attract beneficials AND bloom early to it can benefit strawberry production and early season pest control. There are a few shrubs and trees that bloom early but I’m looking for short term annual and perennials.
Before actually making choices from the short list of early spring flowering plants I wanted to make sure that attractiveness to mason bees is considered. It turns out that having plants bloom all spring and summer is not necessary for mason bees. The adults basically live about six weeks. A spring strawberry crop here in zone 7 blooms in mid to late April. So, now we’ve bracketed the time frame. We were looking for plants attractive to mason bees and other beneficials during April into May.
What we came up with are golden alexanders (Zizia aurea), bulbs like anenome and scilla and dandelions. We have been growing dandelions for edible greens so they will serve double duty.
One more thought for today …. orchardists who are using mason bees to pollinate crops like almonds have noted something very interesting. They recommend mowing the dandelions while the almonds are blooming because the bees need to be pollinating the almonds, not foraging on dandelions - weeds. I plan to keep a notebook with me to jot down observations on:
- date of flowering for each plant
- insects on the plant and flowers
- do the bees prefer another plant over the strawberry
Hover Island
Strange title? We are venturing into a new area on this blog. This is all about beneficial insects, companion planting, garden insectaries, and many other terms. This post will introduce the subject.
We have been trying to figure out the best way to approach this large and new area. We considered setting up a separate website and even a separate blog. For now, I think the best place to start is here.
The reason for “Hover Island”? One term used when someone creates a habitat for beneficials is to call the area an island. Hover comes from Hoverflies. Our whole intention is to create a habitat that will increase hoverflies in our nursery area. For a long time we have search for information on this very important group of insect species. Hoverflies are also called syrphid flies.
Why syrphid flies? First, the adults are active when temperatures are around 55 degrees. Here in Delaware these temperatures are typical of April when strawberries are blooming. The adults are effective pollinators. We have started using and releasing mason bees in the nursery and are using them in pollination cages. We have found them to be very effective. But, you can never have too many pollinators, especially pollinators that are present and more importantly active very early in the spring.
Syrphids or hoverflies have a second HUGE benefit. The larval stages are voracious predators of aphids and other soft bodied pests. The adults tend to deposit eggs where aphids are present.
It is especially important to keep aphids in check in a strawberry nursery. Aphids can transmit viruses so their control is essential to the long term health of the species and selections we grow and sell.
Our intention is to create what we are calling “Hover Island”. We have already selected and purchased seeds and plants that will be grown for this area. We will get into the specifics soon.
We also want to point out that other beneficials will be welcome in Hover Island and in our nursery. The plants we have selected will attract a wide variety of beneficials including hoverflies. The plants selected are being selected to offer habit to hoverflies all season, not just early spring. We get some fruit production in the fall so having beneficials that will pollinate and protect the fall crop is welcome indeed.
And, last but not least, we are selecting plant species that are attractive to mason bees as well. We had success with using polliantion cages to isolate and pollinate several crops for seed production. The mason bees reproduced. We hope that even with expansion of our pollination cages the mason bees can reproduce enough to sustain themselves so we don’t have to continually buy mason bees. Mason bees is another subject for another post.
Look for more posts in the near future for the category Hover Island and other categories. We will take some pictures to share about this very important undertaking.
Fragaria moschata ‘Royal Bauwens’
Fragaria moschata ‘Royal Bauwens’ is a cross of ‘Royal Capron’ and ‘Bauwens’ that we grew from seed. The fruit has a slightly different taste than varieties that we’ve grown up until now. The young plants produced fruit the spring after sowing them. An image of a few berries is here:
When harvested fully ripe the calyx stays behind. The berry on the right separated from the calyx and left behind a little of the top of the fruit.
Fragaria vesca ‘Deesse des Vallees’
I don’t remember posting an image of Fragaria vesca ‘Deesse des Vallees’. Here’s one taken recently from our seed production area. Such a shame to not be able to taste the fruit. It is very aromatic.
Fragaria vesca ‘Hawaii 4′
We searched for years for this selection and I must say that the wait has been worth it. This is the selection that was used by researchers who sequenced the genome of the wild strawberry - in other words they identified the genetics of the wild strawberry.
One aspect of this selection that we were and are excited about is that it is day neutral and it produces runners. All runnering selections we have up to now are June bearing. We expected red fruit but this selection produces a very tasty white/yellow fruit that are every bit as large as the larges alpines we have grown. The plants produce a lot of runners and at least some of the runners produce flowers while they are still pretty small. We think that this is a winner and plan to have some bare root plants available for fall 2013. Here’s an image that we’ll share.
Larger than expected white/yellow fruit of Hawaii 4
Fragaria x bifera - A New Species for Us
Fragaria x bifera is a hybrid of F. vesca and F. viridis. We have been excited to try this species for quite some time. Very little information is available anywhere about the fruit of this species. Slightly more information is available about the plants. We now know a LOT more about this species after only a few months of growing it. Here’s what we’ve learned:
- The plants are vigorous growers. They aggressivly produce runners as well.
- The plants appear to be day neutral as expected. I say appear to be because time will tell during short days of fall to see how that affects reblooming. As of this date, June 15th, the plants are fruiting and blooming at the same time.
- The fruit is white/yellow. I was very surprises about this. The fruit seems to be larger than F. vesca fruit. One fruit weighed in at 2.3 grams. That’s large for a wild type.
Here’s a couple of pictures.
bifera fruit is larger than expected
Larger than expected white/yellow fruit.
We are rooting runners and expect to have bare root plants for sale in the fall 2013. Check the shopping cart to price and availability.
Strawberry Breeding
I’ve been getting a fair number of emails from customers stating that they are glad that I signed the safe seed pledge. Here is one of the responses I sent to a customer today:
“Fortunately, til now those who want to tinker with genetics have left the alpines alone. I fear that won’t last long. The renewed interest in these wild types has caught the attention of the breeders who cannot accept plants for what they are. They think they need to “improve” even what is the best the God ever made. Their idea of improvement is to make them larger and harder so they can be shipped long distances. Haven’t they ever heard of “grow local”? No need to ship those grown locally.”
New Strawberry Species
According to most sources there are 103 species of strawberries. In our search for strawberries with taste we have “discovered” about a dozen or so species. Of course the most well known species is the common garden strawberry, Fragaria x ananassa. By the way, the “x” in the name means that it is a hybrid or cross.
We have been primarily interested in F. vesca, the alpine or wood strawberry. Along the way we found F. moschata, the musk strawberry. The scarlet strawberry, F. virginiana was our next “discovery”. Because F. viridis is a diploid we have been interested in F. viridis for breeding purposes.
Recently, we were able to obtain F. x vescana (a decoploid) and F. x bifera. F. vescana is a forced hybrid between a F. x ananassa and F. vesca. F. x bifera is obtained from the cross of diploid species F. vesca and F. viridis. This hybrid occurs naturally in Europe where both species’ distribution overlaps.
We have other species in our collection that we will discuss later. In the very near future we hope to make available plants of F. x vescana and F. x bifera. We recently added pics of F. bifera to our Facebook page.
Renovation
Other posts have touched on the subject of renovation. I have found through the years that renovation is more an art than a science. So many things have to be considered. Not just the methods, but the extent to which the plants will be trimmed back. Another key decision point is the health of the plants, the season, the environmental conditions, and plans for future crops.
I’m not going to go into all that right now. Suffice it to say that I recommend that one or a few plants are renovated at a time. You don’t want to take a chance with all your plants.
I’ll start this discussion with a reply to an email today from a customer who is having great success with their plants. They are growing in the garden in raised beds and in containers. They asked about cutting the plants back. Here’s the reply sent to them:
“Yes, the plants can be cut back to clean them up. Timing is critical and it is important to cut them back as little as possible. Once they have produced a crop they are messy because of spent bloom stalks and dead and dying leaves. The best and least risky way to clean them up is by hand by cutting out the bloom stalks and dead leaves. The next way would be to take a hedge clipper and trim them back, always leaving as much foliage as possible. The least desirable and not recommended way is to mow them down with a mower. Many will die as a result of this method.
The hardest thing to do after renovation is irrigation. The tendency is to overwater these plants to compensate for the trimming. Now that they have less foliage they will need less water, not more. Regularly overwatering leads to root rots. Some blame the trimming for the loss of the plants when in actuality it’s the irrigation.”
I’ll continue this discussion as time allows.
Mason Bees and Leafcutter Bees
We hope to expand on this subject in the near future. For now we’ll mention that we are using hornfaced mason bees and alfalfa leafcutter bees for pollination of our seed varieties. First chance I’ll add images. Being an entomologist this is a project that I love working with.
We released the mason bees from the refrigerator around April 1st, 2013. Today (April 13th) I saw the first bee entered a hole in the block. That was exciting. We hope that this is a sustainable undertaking. We purchased the initial bees during the winter. We hope that enough bees will be produced each year to help us grow our seed business.
It’s now May 2nd and I can report that the mason bees seem to be doing well. I have stood near the cages a couple of times to observe. I can see the bees moving from flower to flower. I haven’t seen them entering tubes in the domiciles. A bato bucket partially filled with clay soil and watered well has been placed in each cage as a source of mud for the bees. They have all they need, now it’s up to them. Here’s a pic of one of the pollination cages. This particular cage is being used to pollinate Fragaria vesca ‘Hawaii 4′. Plants are all in bato buckets and on a drip system..
Pollination Cage
Plug Production
As of early April 2013 we have decided to move forward with a plug program. We are planning to commit to a screened facility so that we can ship plugs to all states. We can now take orders for 288 plugs for a number of varieties of Fragaria vesca and F. moschata. It is also possible to grow F. virginiana from seed, though we have not added any of these to the shopping cart.
Make sure and order early. Once we take the order we sow the tray(s). It takes 6 - 9 weeks from sowing to shipping. We think this is the most economical way to make these seed grown strawberries available. We are working on ways to make this size available to home gardeners.
Organic Strawberry Production Manual
I just found out about the recently published Organic Strawberry Production Manual published by the University of California - Davis. I ordered a copy online at the URL below. Once I receive it I’ll likely have some comments to make. BTW: it costs $30 plus about $6 s/h. If you have the manual we’d love to hear your thoughts on its content.
Alpine Strawberry ‘Pineapple Crush’
The alpine strawberry crop this year was exceptional. The weather had a lot to do with this bumper crop. Another factor is our fine tuning irrigation and fertilization schedules. Check out these ‘Pineapple Crush’ berries harvested today, 6/22/12. I wish you could experience the aroma and taste of these exceptional berries.
New Directions for The Strawberry Store
I haven’t had a chance to get out a newsletter but did want to make customers and future customers aware of our new directions. This past spring (2012) was our last season of offering a wide variety of selections, species and varieties of strawberries. We are changing our focus to seeds and consulting. Now that there is more awareness of and local production of gourmet strawberries we think this is the logical step forward.
We will be offering pine berries for fall 2012 and spring of 2013 but they will not be grown by us here in Delaware. A terrific grower is now rooting the next crop in Tennessee. All production is bare root production which will allow the plants to be shipping to all 48 continental states. We are not yet sure whether they can be shipping to AK or HI. We will be doing the marketing and taking the orders but the orders will be filled by the new grower. The grower will also be offering several selections of Fragaria virginiana such as ‘Little Scarlet’ and ‘Intensity’ as well. We should be in a position to start taking orders soon. Anyone who has setup a product notification will be notified when inventory has been added to the shopping cart.
We have given most of our web sites a face lift. Our main ecommerce sites will be upgraded shortly. This will allow us to add and update content more easily and hopefully more often. At the bottom of each page of the sites that have been upgraded is a list of the other sites in our family of web sites. These are primarily informational sites that supplement the content of our ecommerce sites. Some have content on species and selections that we are not offering for sale at this time.
We will continue growing custom orders of plugs and plants. Contact us if you have needs. We need to know well in advance of your needs. We will not be growing lots of plants and offering them on a shopping cart other than those being grown by other growers. Anything grown by us will have large minimum quantities and will require a deposit before we sow the seeds.
The post just before this one is about consulting and commercial production of gourmet strawberries. We are now testing systems that could be used by commercial growers that we believe will produce gourmet strawberries, particularly alpine strawberries, and significantly reduce labor costs.
For specifics for any of this information please contact me at [email protected]. To order seeds visit our seed site at Strawberry Seed Store. For one of our sites with a list of the other sites visit fraises des bois.
Starting Point for Commercial Growers
More and more commercial growers are experimenting with gourmet strawberries. I get frequent inquiries from growers who ask for recommendations on what varieties to buy. It is impossible to make such recommendations without knowing the local market or the grower’s goals. I wrote a response today to a grower and am going to post it here. Hopefully, other growers or potential growers will be helped by this response. So, here goes:
……… I consult to growers who plan to grow gourmet strawberries for the high end market. I will provide a few thoughts without a consulting agreement.
First, alpine/woodland types are so soft that high tunnel type protection is essential for optimum production. They can be grown in the open field. I grew them this way more than 20 years ago and supplied a five star French restaurant with the fruit. I did not have protection and lost a fairly large portion of the crop after each rain or wind storm. These storms increased disease problems for the fruit that was not damaged directly by the storms. Gourmet types of hybrid strawberries such as ‘Mara des Bois’ can be grown without protection.
It is essential that you either talk to or conduct a survey of potential customers including chefs. Finding out ahead of time about their needs will save a lot of time and money in the long run. Also keep in mind that there are markets for gourmet strawberries outside of restaurants. High end bakeries, caterers, and others are also potential customers and should be contacted to determine their needs.
My first “rule” is START SMALL. Growers frequently contact me saying that they have set aside several acres and ask for a quote on thousands of plants or zillions of seeds. Growing for this market is more like micro farming. Managing small areas intensively to produce high quality high value fruit. A grower in NJ started a gourmet strawberry biz in NJ this spring. He wanted to grow thousands of plants. I convinced him to start with 300. I think he’s glad he started small. Growing the plants is the easy part. Harvesting is very labor intensive. Doing all of this while trying to develop the market and fine tuning various aspects of the business can be a daunting task.
I offer a resource to growers who are considering gourmet strawberries as a crop. It is a publication that is on both my sites. The nearly $80 price tag discourages some. I will say that I wish I had that information available to me when I was starting out. I can assure you that the price tag of this publication doesn’t even scratch the surface of the costs of research that I have conducted to get to the point where I am today.
Once you get a relatively clear idea of what local customers are looking for we can talk about timing and specific selections/varieties. I am not growing plants for large scale retail sales any longer. This past spring was my last season of that. Instead, I am concentrating on seeds sales as well as consulting. I will grow custom orders of plants but it’s getting late to start a fall crop. Because I don’t have greenhouse facilities any longer it would be nearly impossible for me to start a spring crop here. I’m sure there are local growers who could grow the plants for you if you can’t do this yourself …….
Flower Removal, Source of Straw, Fabric Containers, Companion Planting
We get a lot of questions from customers who are new to gardening. We post answers to try to help gardeners at all levels of experience. Here are answers to multiple questions from one customer recently.
I’m glad the plants are doing well. For spring planted strawberries I recommend removing the flowers for 3-4 weeks. This helps the plant to establish a root system that will be needed to support a fruit load in the future. The plants will grow rapidly in the cool of spring. Of course, if you’ve never tasted the fruit don’t torture yourself. Let a few flowers produce fruit the first time around. A few fruit won’t devastate or severely set back the plants!!!
I don’t know about your area and straw. Here, garden centers, a few produce stands and farm suppliers carry straw in the fall. Other materials will work as long as the plants can breathe. Regular mulch is too dense and will likely smother the plants. I have heard that pine needles works as does corn stalks, though I have never tried either. I tried leaves on a very limited basis a few years ago and almost all plants under the leaves died over winter. Other options include moving the plants, if in containers, to unheated garages/sheds/cool room, etc. In all cases mentioned above, make sure that the plants don’t dry out over winter. It may sound crazy but I have watered plants outside during a very dry winter. Oh, snow is also a good “mulch”. When covered with snow the temperature at the interface of snow and plant is 32F, perfect temp for winter!! It’s the wind that’s the enemy!
So far the root pouches are working out well. The plants seem to love the soil aeration and I believe that soil temperature is moderated. I need to put a thermometer in various types of pots to check it out. I purchased the pouches from the Mega Greenhouse store (an online search will reveal the URL) for what I consider a great price. One observation with the root pouches, and even other types of fabric pots is container height. Most seem to be taller than they are wide (I’m not sure how these companies decide on height/width). This introduces an issue with tipping, like from the wind. Strawberries only need about 6-8″ soil depth. The fabric pots can be folded down to whatever height you want. I recommend rolling them down. It will save soil and reduce potential damage from tipping over.
I tried companion planting with mixed results. I was looking for plants that would attract pollinators as well as the promised effects of companion planting (better yield, etc.). I had also hoped to attract beneficial insects. Borage didn’t seem to have any benefits and it was a pain to grow especially in containers. I didn’t try thyme but it can’t hurt I suppose … at least you can eat it either way! I tried several types of clovers. When they bloomed they brought in several types of pollinators, some in large numbers. Unfortunately, the clovers bloomed way after the strawberries bloomed. By the time the clovers bloomed the temperatures were high and the strawberries were cycling out of bloom. I didn’t look at more than that. I’m sure there are companions that would be beneficial, I just didn’t stay with it long enough to find those relationships.
Gourmet Strawberry Germination Video Guide
We had published a video guide in pdf format with imbeded videos. For some reason the videos don’t work properly. I suspect that it’s a browser issue.
All the videos in the guide are on our YouTube Channel. You may have to sort through the videos and figure out the correct order to view them. We apologize for the inconvenience and will work on getting the video guide to work if possible.
New Site for Seed Sales
To streamline seed sales we have created a new site at Strawberry Seed Store. The minimum order is now lower and seeds are categorized by species. All of these changes should make it easier to order and open the door for more potential customers to enjoy the fruit of these gourmet strawberries.
October 2013 Gourmet Berry News
October 3, 2013 By Leave a Comment
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October 2013