knobbely strawberries???

[gilligan]

hi,
i've been growing strawberries and about 50% have got a knobbly surface.
is this a problem or do i not need to worry about it.

Thanks in advance.

[Two_Sheds]

can you post a photo?

Not sure what you mean by knobbly, tbh.

[crichmond]

The odd ones are like that on mine, they sort of look like a miniature beefsteak tomato shape wise.

[purplekat]

I thinks it's poor pollination that causes that - makes the fruit swell up unevenly

[Snadger]

I thinks it's poor pollination that causes that - makes the fruit swell up unevenly

Agreed.........

(Had to add the dots cos the message was too short...apparently!)

[gilligan]

thanks to everyone, you've all been a great help

[FB.]

I think that it's poor pollination. It's certainly a cause of small or mis-shapen fruits on other fruit plants.

A lot of my strawberries are crimped and twisted shapes this year and - for the first time I can recall - some of the strawberry plants have dropped their flowers without producing fruit - but we didn't have any late frosts.

Bees are extremely rare sights in my area this year and my fruit trees have only very light crops as a result.

[graybag]

Anything like these?



First year of strawberries for me, great crop so far with a couple like this!

Graham

[quark1]

I suspect that in past years there were many more of these uneven strawbs for sale (cheaply?) in greengrocers etc - probably most of which found their way into jam.

It is probably only the dawning of the supermarket 'standard' for perfect looking fruits which have seen them off. I'm sure there is nothing untoward about these 'ugly' versions of their 'beauty pageant' cousins!

[FB.]

Quark

You may be correct. Ugly fruited varieties are often tastier.
These days, most types of shop-bought fruits are bred for their nice shapes, unblemished skins and colours (all make them easier to sell), even sizes (easier to pick), even ripening of the crop (only needs one picking), plus the ability to withstand rough handling or travel across oceans. Flavour is well down the list of priorities.
We're trying out a new-ish early strawberry variety called "Christine". A large proportion of the fruits are badly distorted in shape, but their taste is considerably better than our other earlies (Alice, Honeoye), so we'll be gradualy increasing our Christine stock from the runners, although we have some minor concerns about Christine strawberries appearing to get moulds more easily than our others.

[ohbeary]

Ah yes the easy handling fruits, I recall some exitment a few years back when the Canadians came up with a strawberry that would freeze and defrost almost unchanged, something to do with (antifreeze) fish genes!!!!