Visiting strawberry growers brings always some nice surprices.
This time several predators (one of aphids) and 3 pictures of rooting in different conditions.
Bugs:
– An aphid
– Aphidius on the leafs of lemon (a grower who has lemon in a greenhouse next to his strawberries)
-Aphidoletes just finished its meal
-Egg of a hoverfly
-Egg of a lacewing
-Predatory mite. I sometimes see huge amounts. Especially where the climate is a bit tempered they may develop very nice.
Last weeks i have also seen huge numbers of Feltiella. Sometimes diminishing huge colonies of spider mites. Especially the native feltiella used to develop very good.
Rooting:
Nr 1: an example of very dry growing. Consequence: roots for 90% in the bottom 5 cm of the substrate. No buffer, in case of changing weather this directly influences the quality of the strawberries:
– if it gets wet, roots may get water soaked and suffer oxygen deficiency, causing yellowing of leafs and soft fruits
– if it gets dry, the buffer of water is too low, so plants will suffer water deficiency
Nr 2: A bit dry growing, with below the drippers good rooting, but between them not enough roots
Nr 3: clearly better rooting, but a bit more water would be better (you can see the huge amount of roots on the bottom of the substrate)
