I have been raising strawberries on black plastic now for about 4 yrs. I plant plugs around beginning of september and apply a row cover in the fall once temps drop to help extend my growing season as well as frost protection. I have been having decent production, 1/2 qt per plant or so but the more i read it seems like i could be up around 1qt per plant. My plan was to expand my patch from about 600 plants to 1200 but if i can up my yield and get the same amount of berries with half the plants i would obviosly prefer that. I get my soil tested in the summer and add the recommended fertilizer  as well as using a foiier fertilizer ones plants come out of dormancy in the spring.
Does anyone else her raise strawberries this way? What kind of yields do you get? Im thinking i should be adding some water soluble fertilizer and nutients through my drip irrigation, at this point i water with the drip, but that is it. Anyones input would be greatly appreciated.

I don’t know anything about growing strawberries but I do like to eat them

I started using fertigation this year on 2 of my general gardens and thus far yield hhas substantially improved compared to the last couple of years.  I use Fertimaxx Balance  (18-18-18) and a 2 gallon Ez-flo tank/injector.

Eveyone loves strawberries. Do you like the injection setup that you have?  Is it pretty easy to use? Thanks for the input. Apparently no one else grows strawberries either, haha

Heres what my extension says about it:

https://extension.umd.edu/hgic/topics/strawberry-care

I've been experimenting a bit with different balances of fertilizers at different points of the season.  For veg stage I have used a nitrogen heavy fertilizer mix, for fruiting and dormancy I used a phosphorus and potassium heavy mix. Depending on the type of fertilizer it was every 3-6 weeks.  My peppers loved the feed schedule and always had more than I knew what to do with.  Different plants need different things so Ive been making my own mixes for specific plants and have started to mix synthetic and organic feeds and so far so good.

A square mix (like 10-10-10) to start the season might be best for them though they do prepare buds the season before as they go dormant.  Perhaps a potassium and phosphorus heavy mix as they come out of dormancy and then a nitrogen heavy mix after the harvest? IE: a 5-10-10 mix as they come out of dormancy and a 10-5-5 mix after harvest.  With how strawberries seem to grow, long term release sources might be best.  Blood meal and feather meal for nitrogen (not sure what synthetics are good for that) and if your soil is more towards a neutral ph, langbeinite for potassium and more acidity (down to 6.0ph) then bone meal and/or seabird guano for phosphorus. If you want short and long term in a single mix then mixing synthetic versions of the nutrients needed with the organics could work pretty well.  

What variety do you grow?

The ones that I've seen for sale to gardeners around here look nothing like the plump red strawberries that you find at a market.

It must be an 'agribusiness thing'...

It works for me thus far and simple to operate, does not require massive pressure, hasn't clogged up yet and my plants look great.  Has different settings to determine how much/how fast fertilizer is applied, I think it cost around $75 so hard to go wrong at that price.  Weak point is the plastic injector if you broke a nipple off it would be toast but mine don't see any rough handling and are in relatively protected areas re: vehicle traffic etc.

Attached File


I got mine at Drip Depot they have the more expensive injector setups as well as the fertilizer in various formulations.

Many people have had great success using worm castings with their irrigation system. Do some research and see if it’s worth trialing for you.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think i will do some more research on the fertilzer injector. The way plasticulture works is you plant new plugs in september, push them with row cover and fertilzer to get as much growth i  the fall as you can. Keep row cover on over wintwr and until you start getting 65 degree days and start seei g blossoms. You can then remove cover and use it as a frost portection on cold nights. Once you harvest you reomove the plants and start over. So you only get one groqing season from the plants.  I seems inefficient but i have tried wintering them over and production was probably half of the first year. I tried something different with a few of my berries this year and put them to the crown after harvest, pulled the plastic and drip up and allowed the runners to grow. They did well this year but its much more labor intensive to pick them as a matted row rather than on plastic.   I think going to try out a fertilzer injector and see if i can up my yields before expanding.
 The varietes i have used so far are earlyglow, chandler , and jewel. The earlyglow have best flavor by far but dont get near the size of the chandler or jewel. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and any info is great