do strawberries in baskets/planters send off new shoots?

[amzie]

i got into gardening for the first time ever this summer and i'm obsessed! i've heard its the time to order strawberry runners now

i'm a student on a very tight budget and need value for money. if i purchase runners, will they send off new shoots next year (or whenever they do that) even if they are in pots, instead of in the ground?

and if anybody's grown strawberries before, what are some brilliant disease resistant varieties? i seem to be having issues with powdery mildew on my peas and sow thistle (and my neighbour has even more and is unwilling to cut her infected plants down - she's growing strawberries too, so that could be a problem)

thank you for any advice you can offer!

[roitelet]

Don't know about resistant varieties but strawberries will send out runners in the ground or not. The only thing is that for the first year I don't let mine produce runners as this helps to build up strong plants and I don't let them crop either.

Can you cadge a few plants from your neighbour to get you started?

BTW welcome to the vine and the best of luck.

[FB.]

The varieties Christine and Pegasus are on the sweet side, tasty and quite vigorous. They coped well with my very poor soil and erratic rainfall.
Those two varieties are capable of growing, fruiting and producing runners at the same time and from quite a young age - although it is best to let young plants simply grow to build their strength in their first year, otherwise they may never reach their full potential.
I've had no disease problems with either variety in my unsprayed growing.
Hapil and Symphony also cope quite well with poorer soils and erratic watering/rainfall.

Honeoye and Florence are some of the weaker/more fussy varieties, which don't cope well with poor soil or erratic rainfall. Florence is a very slow grower and tends to divide into two at the crown, rather than produce runners.

[Alison]

Honeoye and Florence are some of the weaker/more fussy varieties, which don't cope well with poor soil or erratic rainfall.

I'd disagree with your comments re Honeoye, I have 24 plants in not specially good soil which are never watered so if it doesn't rain, they don't get water. I have 3 plants per tyre which is rather closely spaced. They produce HUGE quantities of fruit and I've never stopped any fruiting from when I first had 12 runners. I do restrict the numbers of runners each year to a max of 2 per plant and replace every 3 years but would thoroughly recommend the variety.

Re the original post, if you're on a tight budget, your best bet would be to get some runners from a friend / neighbour, they'll do fine and will be free.

[FB.]

Alison

How much natural rainfall do you get?
I'm guessing that in the NorthWest, there's plenty of rain.
Over here in the East, almost every summer sees a severe drought.

Amount of rainfall is probably the single most important factor when it comes to successful fruit growing.
The NorthWest used to be famous for its plums, which require a nice, steady moisture provision. I gave up on plums a couple of years ago.

Here's a link to UK rainfall and other climate maps:
> Met Office <

Change settings to "rainfall" on the upper menu and to "annual" on the lower menu.
You'll see that many areas in the East are very dry indeed - and also quite high temperatures and high sunshine, which dries the soil very quickly.

That's why I eventually opted for the drought-tolerant MM111 apple rootstock and the very vigorous M25 rootstock, along with wild pear and pear seedling rootstocks. The regular MM106, Quince A and St.Julien A simply can't get a hold, taking about ten years to reach 1.5metres (5-6ft). My MM111's, M25's, Seedling and wild pear roots are spaced only 3-4 metres apart because they will never get any large than that. Even the few surviving big old Bramleys on the old seedling roots are only about 4 metres in size. Few other fruit trees, apart from Bramley apples and cherries, are capable of surviving to old age in this area. Cherries on vigorous/seedling roots get to about 6 metres.

I mention drought tolerance of strawberries because it is very easy to under-water containerised plants and in summer they may need watering every two days.

[FB.]

Although slightly off on a tangent, here's why MM106 is problematic:

When the soil starts to dry, the rootstock sends a hormone response to the leaves and shoots to reduce their water consumption by closing stomata (pores) and reducing photosynthesis (which uses CO2 and water to make sugar).
This therefore shuts down all but the essential processes required to keep the tree ticking over.

When rain arrives, the tree firstly sends out fine roots to absorb water and later, if the soil remains moist, it will send out thicker structural roots to expand its water-gathering area.
Now here's where the problem comes:
Some varieties are quick to respond to rainfall with fine roots and quick to grow new larger structural roots. MM106 is slow to start with (slower than a dwarf rootstock), but after the soil remains damp for a few weeks, the roots really start to move and can grow almost as fast as the mighty M25. But if the soil dries within a week or so, the MM106 shuts down again and never initiates new structural roots, thus struggling to expand its root system to better cope with gathering rainfall next time.
On the other hand, MM111 does not shut down as quickly when the soil dries and produces huge amounts of roots very quickly after rainfall. M25 shuts down easily as the soil dries, but is very quick to restart and its roots are able to grow great distances in a short period.

So, in a dry climate, MM106 may struggle to get a good root system going, while M25 may grow in "spurts" as it responds to each period of rain, while MM111 tends to keep growing for longer in dry spells, so is more predictable.
In moist but not heavy soil, MM106 will equal MM111, but in dry soil MM106 may be as small as M9 or M26.

What I'm getting at is that different types of plant, or different varieties of the same plant plant react in surprisingly different ways to climate. There are also known examples of fruit trees which prefer high-rainfall regions or others which prefer low-rainfall regions.