Quite some grower of strawberries used to pick leaf’s for several reasons. It doesn’t always make sense to me.
The principle of strawberry growing is: use sunlight and try to grow the best strawberries with that sunlight. No sunlight means no strawberries. And also for strawberries the 1% rule applies:
1% lower radiation = 1% lower yield
With deleafing the radiation does not change, but the uptake or use of sunlight does.
We used to measure the LAI of strawberries. In a lot of cases the LAI remains below 2,5 sometimes even way below 2. The optimum LAI for strawberries is >2,8 in order to catch as much sunlight as possible.
De leafing incase of a lower LAI means: not enough energy, means: not enough leafs and or berries, means: lower yields, worser taste and fruit size.
Can we pick leafs? Yes but:
- Only if leaf area is enough (>3,2)
- Only if it makes sense (disturbs other points of growing like for example fruit quality, disease control etc)
Picking leafs from the heart of the plant in order to stimulate flowering doesn’t make sense in strawberries. A strawberry is not a tomato and doesn’t react like a tomato. If you like to have more strawberries: first take care of your leaf area, second: grow balanced: not too generative, not too vegetative.
My big struggle with a lot of strawberries is: the LAI is too low, thus loosing 10-30% or more yield. In that case, the numbers of berries can be there, but the fruits just stay smaller = low picking rates and a low yield.