Care of fruit-bearing strawberries
Spring care begins with the removal of old leaves. When the top layers of the soil dry a little and you can go out to the plantation, beds or rows must be cleaned of old and diseased leaves. This important preventive work is carried out as follows: in the right hand hold a bayonet, and left take dry leaves and mustaches and cut them off with bayonets near the bush. The bayonet must be well polished, otherwise it will jam and tear the petioles. You can do this work with a pruner, and you should leave as little of the leaf as possible. The land is collected in baskets, taken out in a compost heap or burned.
During burning, wintering spores of fungal diseases are destroyed, mainly white and brown spots, which are always present on old leaves. Simultaneously or immediately after harvesting the old leaves, the first loosening of the soil in the rows is carried out. Loosening should be done by bayonet. The bayonet is held in the right hand, and the left all the time raise the leaves of strawberries, so as not to damage them when loosening. Near the very bushes it is necessary to loosen gently for 2-3 cm depth, so as not to damage the root system. At a distance of 10-12 cm from the bush, loosen to full bayonet, ie, 8-10 cm, trying to mix the soil with mineral fertilizers as much as possible and seal them closer to the roots.
Sometimes, especially on clay soils, strawberry shrubs over the winter bulge out of the ground or rhizome, greatly expanding, rises above the soil. In such cases, the bushes grow up to the rosette of young leaves, protecting the heart from falling asleep.
When humming over the soil bush in the ranks of the soil is not enough, and it is usually taken from the inter-row or poured composted land or reparted manure. Growth enhances the growth of strawberries, reduces the risk of plants frosting in winter, especially in snowless winters.
To increase the yield on fruiting strawberries, and also in the years when plants come out after weakened and slowly grow after winter, it is recommended to top dress with a combined liquid fertilizer( Mullein solution 1: 6 or bird droppings 1:20 with 150 g of wood ash and 60 gramssuperphosphate simple for 10 liters of water) at the rate of 1 bucket per 5 m grooves depth of 4-5 cm, made on both sides of a row of plants. After closing the grooves, strawberries are sprinkled with clean water.
You can use dry mineral fertilizers( fruit and berry mixture) in doses of 40-50 g per 1 m2, spilling evenly around the bushes in the inter-row spacing.
Good results are obtained by foliar fertilization with urea in a concentration of 0.4-0.5%.Yield increases by 20-30%.
Positive effect on the yield is provided by foliar top dressing with microelements. It is carried out before or during flowering and again on the first green ovaries. The treatment is carried out with solutions of boron( borax-Na2B4O7, boric acid-H3BO3), manganese( manganese sulfate-MnO4), zinc( zinc sulfate-ZnSO4), copper( copper sulfate-CuSO4) and cobalt( CoS04 cobalt sulfate) at 0.02%, spray the plants in the evening to fully wet the leaves, if it rains within 12 hours after treatment, spraying should be repeated.
After the first spring loosening it is repeated every 10-15 days. For the entire season, from 6 to 10 interrow treatments are carried out. Inter-row processing is timed to the appearance of weeds or peel after irrigation or precipitation. If strawberries are planted in rows with row spacing 80-90 cm, then when conducting propoloks and manual hoes, rosettes rooted in the strip of 35-40 cm, do not destroy. The creation of a dense strip in the first two years after planting will allow to obscure the soil in the ranks, which worsens the conditions for the growth of weeds.
The amount of loosening can be greatly reduced if early in the spring, immediately after the first tillage, apply mulching. The soil between the bushes and in the aisles is covered with a thin layer of straw, straw dung, sawdust, peat or mulch paper. Mulching contributes to the preservation of moisture and regulates the temperature of the soil.
Peat should not be dry. It is pre-moistened or brought in between the rows after the rain.
Manure covers the soil in rows with a solid stripe. Usually, after application of manure, you have to weed only before harvesting, but we need to weed them carefully, without shifting the manure from the rows.
In the aisles the soil is loosened by a hoe to a depth of 8-10 cm. During the summer, the soil in rows and rows should be kept loose and completely clean from weeds. For this row, not covered with mulch, you have to loosen at least 6 times in the summer. In the ranks, if they are not cloaked, a loosening of the bayonet takes place three or four times in the summer. At the same time, weeds are removed. On the fruit-bearing strawberries, the bayonet should not be replaced by hoeing, since the soil is less thoroughly disintegrated when hoeing, than with a bayonet. In addition, when hoeing, many green leaves are cut off and a risk of damage to the root system is created.
Protection of the berries against pollution by using special supports( fences)
Protection of the berries from contamination with the help of special liners
If the aisle rows between the strawberries are covered with straw manure, by the time of fruiting, the manure, washed with rain and "burned" by the sun, creates a good bed for berries. If mulch was used for humus, peat or soil was not mulched at all, it is necessary to lay straw under the bushes. Without litter, especially in rainy time, brushes with poured fall on the ground, and the berries are strongly dirty. Such berries are rejected during harvesting. In England, always mulch the land with just one straw, and therefore strawberries are called Straw-berry, i.e.thatched strawberry.
Sometimes, various linings( planks, plastic boxes, special props in the form of small fences) are used to protect berries from contamination, or small pegs are driven in along the row, and the eight not tightly tie the bushes with twine during flowering, raising the peduncles.
In addition to loosening and weeding, strawberry as a herbaceous plant strongly adherent, with a superficial arrangement of the root system, needs watering, since it reacts sharply to a lack of moisture. Correctly organized watering of plantings is effective not only in arid regions, but also in the Northwest of the Non-chernozem zone. Strawberries need watering early in the spring( especially if drought), during flowering and filling of green berries and after harvest. The greatest demand for moisture comes in the period of fruiting, but there is a danger of increasing crop losses from the disease with gray rot, so it is better to refrain from watering in the given period if possible.
In the backyard, strawberries are watered with watering cans, and in the presence of a water pipe with sufficient pressure from hoses attached to the water column. When watering, even in arid years, the berries are large, shiny, beautiful, the yields do not decrease. During flowering until the moment of the formation of berries, the plants are watered necessarily under the root, without splashing the foliage. Ideally, if the water is warm( heated in the sun).
All described works are carried out in order to increase the harvest of the current year. After harvesting, it is necessary to create conditions that ensure a crop in the next year. Many gardeners, harvesting berries, abandon the site and only in autumn they spend loosening the soil. It is not right. Next year's harvest should be taken care of immediately after picking berries. After harvesting a good harvest, strawberry plants are depleted. Namely, at this time( in the second half of the summer and in the autumn) strawberries form new horns, new leaves are formed, roots grow intensively, flower buds are laid. The growth and development of plants in the post-harvest period predetermine the harvest of berries in the coming year. The oppression of plants during this period, caused by soil compaction, numerous weeds, lack of moisture, etc., are the main causes of poor winter hardiness and low strawberry yield.
Therefore, immediately after the end of harvesting in a short time, the site is weeded from weeds, cultivating the soil in rows and rows between all the occupied strawberries of the area. Further inter-row processing is repeated as necessary. Particular attention should be paid to whether the plants are affected by the strawberry mite. This pest greatly exhausts bushes and the crop for the next year is reduced by more than 30%.
When affected by strawberry mites leaves underdeveloped, get ugly wrinkles, young leaves have a yellowish-oily hue and often die. Affected plants grow smaller, become dwarfish. The mite itself is so small in size that you can see its accumulations in the folds of young leaves only with the help of a magnifying glass. Adult females hibernate at the base of leaf petioles.
In wet, warm weather the strawberry mite develops rapidly and generates several generations. Against the tick, the best results are achieved by cutting the entire aboveground part of the plant immediately after harvesting. When mowing, care must be taken not to cut off the apical bud and the heart. In this case, by the end of autumn, the plants are restored to normal leaves. Cut or sloping leaves are collected and burned. For the plantations, they organize good care - watering, loosening, fertilizing.
If the leaves are not affected by the mite, they are not cut off. The more leafy bushes strawberries will leave in the winter, the higher the harvest will be for the next year.
After weeding, mineral fertilizers and, above all, nitrogen fertilizers are introduced, sealing them into the soil by loosening. At 1 m square, add 10 g of saltpeter or 15 g of ammonium sulfate. In dry weather, the plot should be well watered at a rate of 10 liters( bucket) per 1 m2.If this can not be done, fertilizers are brought in after the rain. After a while, when under the influence of nitrogenous fertilizer, the increased growth of strawberry leaves begins, phosphoric and potassium fertilizers are introduced and also by loosening they are embedded in the soil. On 1 m2 of the plot, 20 g of potassium salt, 15 g of superphosphate or 30 g of phosphorite flour are added. Phosphorite flour and potassium salt can be replaced with ash, adding it to 200 g per 1 m2, neatly sprinkling around the strawberry bush.
Autumn fertilizer of strawberries is better to use in rainy weather or when watering.
In autumn the soil is loosened with a bayonet. If the rhizome of strawberry rises above the soil, it is necessary to impose it, otherwise the additional rootlets will not develop or, having developed, dry and wither away. Hilling increases the harvest of strawberries next year.
After fertilizing, loosening and hilling the bushes will develop new healthy foliage and lay fruit buds for fructification next year.
Plants leave in the winter strong and less exposed to freezing.
To prevent strawberries from freezing( especially in areas with insufficient snow cover) in autumn, the soil in the aisles is covered with humus, peat or compost.
In the snow-less winters, measures should be taken to detain snow in the plots. To do this, open panels are used to place shields from various materials or make 5 m each of snow from the snow. In this case, the snow from the rows is placed in rows. The shafts are placed on the site in staggered order, at a distance of 10 m from each other or even more often.
It is best to plant strawberries not in open areas, but as indicated earlier, in places protected by the edge, protective strips or in the aisles of the young fruit garden.
Cutter height after harvest