Manage strawberry rot
2022-06-13T18:07:57+10:00
Strawberry plants are easy to grow, so it’s frustrating when things go wrong and you don’t get the sweet, succulent harvest you’d imagined. One particular problem is rotting fruit. Here’s how to solve it.
Delicate strawberry fruit is very prone to rotting when wet. In some cases, a common disease called grey mould (or botrytis) may take hold, producing fuzzy grey growth on the fruit. These problems can be the result of rain, overwatering or the fruit resting on damp soil.
When watering, be careful to target the soil, not the plant. This greatly helps to alleviate the problem. Also, maintain a nice dry mulch of straw around the plants and under the fruit (they don’t call them strawberries for nothing!), and regularly replace wet straw with dry stuff. You’ll also want to remove old growth, and thin out excess foliage to reduce moisture build-up around fruit. Be diligent about removing diseased foliage and fruit to avoid a build-up of pathogens.
The easiest way to deal with excess moisture around strawberry fruit is to grow them in pots. The fruit can spill over the side, where they stay dry, and the pots can be kept off the ground, where there’s good airflow, allowing foliage to dry out quicker. You can also move the pots to shelter during rainy periods.
Photo by iStock
