heightend security on strawberries

[swaine]

just got to add the trip wire ,spot lights, and motion sensors and barbed wire this after noon,
this strawberry species (fragaria chiloensis) has for the last 17 years resisted all my attempts to get it to fruit
only over the last year or 2 have i learnt from some very old books that the chiloensis is difficult to get to fruit , bland(and apart from hybrids that went onto the strawberrys we know and love), they were pretty much thrown onto the victorian compost heap,
since reading this ive added about another 10+ types of chiloensis and hey presto my first ever chiloensis berry, and amazingly its looking like about 5 of the other chiloensis are fruiting, talk about no buses,, then 3 at once
this chiloensis looking like having pinky red berries, i also have 4-5 white species aswell,
im still not 100% sure if this plant is 100% fertile, or pollen from other strawberries, i have noticed pure females and pure male in the chilonensis, maybe a lot of work for 1-2 berries but a labour of love, growing between 150-175 varieties of strawberries now, and this is one of many im most excited about
regards stew

[swaine]

a better picture of the berry

[veggiechicken]

I learn something new every day here. I'd never heard of Fragaria Chiloensis before - but a quick Goggle has me intrigued! I do hope you can ripen it successfully. Will you eat the fruit or save the seeds? I suppose you could do both actually!

[alldigging]

Did they need another type to pollinate properly?

[taff]

well done
there's nothing like being obssessed with something, it does feel like a big victory when you do something you haven't been able ot do for years...I feel that way about germinating the only one seed I had of a particular tomato

[swaine]

you certainly do
im hoping to taste it and save the seed, how yet i dont know,
may maybe try slicing thin layer of seeds off and tasting the remanants of the berry,

I learn something new every day here. I'd never heard of Fragaria Chiloensis before - but a quick Goggle has me intrigued! I do hope you can ripen it successfully. Will you eat the fruit or save the seeds? I suppose you could do both actually!

[swaine]

im still not 100% sure, i have many old victorian fruit books, and it is mentioned in the uk we had now luck fruiting them and they were pretty much disgarded,
althou a clever chap in france called duchesne pollinated the chiloensis with (male) fragaria moschata (musk strawberry) pollen, the chiloensis being female had no male parts to pollinate, the plant beared fruit which he presented to king louis xv,
i grow fragaria moschata but not in the same area as the chiloensis, so i have much more experimenting to do, like isolating this plant to see if it produces without aid from any other strawberryit has been grown in the area of normal type strawberrys, fragaria viridis, and fragaria virginiana, (the virginiana) from north america is another type of strawberry that supoosed to plooinate the chiloensis, the chiloensis x virginiana is the hybrid that was made were our common day strawberries arose from, pic attached, pink berry (male chiloensis x female virginiana) pictured alongside anablanca (white)and madame moutot (red)

Did they need another type to pollinate properly?

[swaine]

many thanks, its been a long proccess, but if you worked hard enough on something results can had,

well done
there's nothing like being obssessed with something, it does feel like a big victory when you do something you haven't been able ot do for years...I feel that way about germinating the only one seed I had of a particular tomato

[RedThorn]

Ain't life different now days before you'd have to nip off to library to look something like that up.. yup I googled it too, well done you and good luck going forwards

[Peas'n'Kews]

Cripes and crivens! 10/10 for perseverence! Hope you get to enjoy the fruits of your labours...

[swaine]

many thanks

Ain't life different now days before you'd have to nip off to library to look something like that up.. yup I googled it too, well done you and good luck going forwards

[GardenFaery]

I think they'll turn back when they see the sign! giggles