Manipulating Flowering Times and Site Attractiveness To Pollinators To Improve Yield and Fruit Quality in Strawberry

Year-round strawberry availability in the United States relies primarily on day-neutral cultivars grown in temperate climates like California and Florida. However, such production methods are often unsustainable, relying on soil fumigation, low biodiversity in monocultures, and high post-harvest shipping costs. In recent years, consumers seem more interested in sustainable and locally sourced produce. This study aims to establish optimal propagule and interrow cover cultivation for New York berry growers to extend the local strawberry season, maximize their yields though day-neutral production, and create a more pollinator-friendly production system. Fragaria x ananassa ‘Albion’ was planted in plasticulture in a RCBD in Ithaca, NY for the 2022 and 2023 growing seasons. Plants were sourced as four propagule types from different developmental stages to stagger fruiting cycles. These were grown under three interrow cover treatments comprised of exclusion netting, bare ground, and flowering cover which differed in composition of vegetative growth between rows of strawberries. Fruits were collected weekly to observe marketable and unmarketable yields through the growing season. Proportion fruit set and native pollinator visitation observations were made. Statistics were performed in R using mixed linear models. My results showed that plug propagules produced significantly higher marketable yields than the other treatments through the season. However, marketable yield proportions of total yield varied depending on the growing year due to drastically different weather conditions. Additionally, exclusion cover had significantly higher marketable yield than the other cover types, despite excluding pollinators. Interrow ground cover had no significant effect on the number of visits to strawberry or diversity of native pollinators in either year. Native bee species showed different peak visitation times over the growing season from both years. Overall, cultivating day-neutral strawberries at different developmental stages leads to an extended local strawberry season, native bees comprise most strawberry pollination visits, and interrow cover did not affect bee visits to strawberries.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S., Horticulture

Level thesis:degree_level

Master of Science

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Horticulture

Grantor

Cornell University

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Robertson, Mykala

Committee member dc:contributor.committeemember

• Loeb, Gregory

• day-neutral
• Fragaria
• interrow cover
• pollination
• propagule
• ‘Albion’

Language dc:language.iso

en

DOI

http://doi.org/10.7298/xbg6-nd45

Dc Identifier Other

ProQuest Submission ID: 11997
ProQuest Publication ID: 30811491

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ecommons.cornell.edu:1813/115632