Grow Your Own Magazine

Is this a strawberry runner? If it is what do I do with it?


Thanks

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I hate slugs!!

Certainly looks like it.

What you do depends what you want. If you want more plants then put the leafy bit in a pot of compost (still attached to the parent plant) and after about a month cut it off and replant in its final position. If you want more strawberry fruits then cut it off - you will get more for "babies" later

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A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! (Thomas Edward Brown)

Most certainly is!!!!!

OK- so I presume this is your first year?????....cut them off- it'll be hard work for them to flower and fruit this year.

Plenty plenty runners next yea...and the next.........I'd allow the mother plants to establish this year

This is my first year however I was given this plants and they were from the year before. I also only have about 5 strawberries on the 5 plants I have. Should I pot on the runners then so I will have more plants for my allotment next year?

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I hate slugs!!

I'd cut them off...and concentrate on the fruit this year ..and next...and start potting up a few runners next year- and loads the next.

But that's my choice...others would get stuck in.....your call me thinks!!

sure looks like it's doing one

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aka
Suzie

LOL

Im not sure whether to cut them off or not! eek!

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I hate slugs!!

Hate to raise your anxiety levels a further notch, ladd, but there is another factor to consider.
When a plant starts to grow, the genetic clock which ticks away until it dies of old age does so by means of telomeres. What happens is that every time the cells divide, a cap called a telomere which lies at the end of each DNA filled chromosome, has a bit broken off it. Eventually, the telomeres disappear entirely and the process of cell division fails as the chromosomes fall apart. How long the telomeres are in an organism defines how old it may grow.
The problem with your runners is that their telomeres are the same age as the parent plant, because in effect they are clones. Size is no indicator of age with strawberry runners.
If your parent plant is also a runner that was given to you by a friend, as is common with strawberries, then part of its alloted lifespan is already used up, and quite apart from loss of vigour due to ongoing infection by viruses etc you have to be aware that it's probable five year span is already going to be halfway through next year, as will be its runners'. So don't go thinking that you have five years to play with your runners, even after you spend a year growing up your parent.
Everyone thinks "Lovely !" when a friend gives them some strawberry runners, but there is a reason why commercial growers always use plants grown from seed, and seedsmen continue to sell plants and even strawberry seeds to gardeners. There's nowt for nowt in this life, particularly in the merciless world of biology.
So I suppose you might as well pot up the runners this year, grow them and the parent on next year, and harvest from then on.

Cor..never heard that before snohare!!!


well you learn something everyday!!

Wow, thats a lot of info, but great. Thanks for writing it all out. I will do like you said, and will grow some plants from seed for next year too then!

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I hate slugs!!

Neither had I. As Hazel always says, everyday is a schoolday

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A garden is a lovesome thing, God wot! (Thomas Edward Brown)

Does that mean its best to take runners from the 1st plant that has been given from a runner and not let it settle in?

So why do strawberry specialists like Ken Muir and others describe the plants they sell as freshly grown, virus-free, open-ground runners, hm?

I'm a bit confused about this too - most things I've read about growing strawberries say to replace the plants every 3 - 5 years, and then go on to talk about rooting runners to replace your plants with; nothing about growing from seed.

This would seem to suggest that replacing your plants with ones you've grown on from runners is a waste of time, and you should be replacing them with ones you've grown from seed.

Which is right? I'm new to strawberries (in my second year, and they're doing excellently at the moment - all from runners, btw)

If you grow from seed, you will not have the same variety; just like children aren't identical to their parents (although usually share many features).

Older strawberry plants tend to run out of vigour (old age), the soil becomes depleted of nutrients (strawberries are nutrient-hungry) and they can be attacked by underground pests that build mup over time. They can also catch virus infections form aphid bites, which gradually weaken the plant as it acquires more viruses over it's lifetime.

Runners will be young plants growing in fresh soil that has no pests and plenty of nutrients. However, after many years, it is possible that all your strawberries may have become virus-infected, no matter how well you look after them. Aphid control is the best way to keep viruses at bay.
My strawberres are not troubled by aphids; the aphids much prefer rose bushes and apple trees (which I have plenty of!).

The idea is to keep moving your strawberries around and gradually destroy the older plants, or any that get sick. You keep the healthiest of the runners each year.

I don't pretend to be an expert on strawberry growing, so please don't assume I know all the tricks of the trade folks !
I've got to say that I have never spent much time reading about strawberries in catalogues bendipa, but I would guess that "fresh grown, virus free open ground runners" are either runners that are taken from the first year plants originally grown from seed, or are described as open-ground runners because that is their growth pattern - in the same way that tomatoes are either bushes or cordons. Commercial growers will always take their seed stock from "elites" - plants that are noticeably better than the rest of the crop - so improving the health of their first generation plants, particularly when growing from seed, so that would counterweigh against losing a year by growing runners to sell as stock. Heavens only knows how they keep them virus free, I can only assume they dose them with antivirals - for how can you guarantee to keep aphids off plants for even just one year ?
Heggied, I'm sure I have heard of strawberry seed to buy in catalogues, but very much as a rarity. Growing from seed so as to create uniform plants is commercially possible for growers only because they know all the genetic provenance, F1 and F2 lineage, and can do closed pollination etc, thus creating a genetic bottleneck. Growing from seed from your own strawberries can give mixed results, as FB says.
For what it is worth, in my opinion you can only supplement, not actually replace, what you have bought, by rooting up runners. As FB says, you destroy diseased plants, and take runners from healthier ones; but sure as eggs is eggs, you will need to buy more at some point to keep numbers or yield up because the runners will gradually lose vigour.
The reason I think this is that in the past when I helped grow strawberries on a large-ish scale we used to root up runners year on year to maximise yield by increasing the number of plants; but it was a case of diminishing returns, as the overall vigour decreased. Eventually - sometimes not so eventually ! - there came a year when they were all discarded and new ones bought in wholesale, with their numbers increased from rooting up their runners. I always assumed that this was what everyone had to do periodically, it is simply not possible that you can keep runners indefinitely.
I know about cell biology, so you can take that to the bank; but when I say they will last five years I am quoting the figure I have read and been told (and have seen myself), it may well be that in some areas or varieties they will last longer under certain conditions, eg if they keep being shifted. With us viruses were a major problem, no doubt about it.
Maybe there are areas where lack of viruses makes all the difference ? I'd like to know how long other folk here have their plants for, in different incarnations...

Thanks for that snohare - makes a bit more sense to me now, I think ...

sooooooooo will the runners that i cut off and then planted in plant pots not grow? i've done some both ways, i've planted some that are still attached and some that have been cut off

ckfe - If I understand right, they'll grow fine, but over the years, the plants (and those grown from successive runners from them) will loose their vigour, and become less and less productive, until they need to be replaced with new plants from seed.

That's it, Heggied. As near as I can work out !