Strawberry growers check your fruit

[Penellype]

Walking round my garden this morning I found several (still green) fruit with soft brown marks on, mainly at the stem end.



Check your fruit and remove any rotting ones before it spreads to other fruit. Strawberries hate wet weather.

[skeggijon]

Been checking mine regularly - and unfortunately having to remove quite a few
On the positive side though, still getting quite a lot of ripe ones. Just a shame the slugs seem to find most of them before I do!

[craftymarie]

Thanks, Pennellype. I've picked one like this off already and luckily the others all look OK. Mine are all under cover now.

[vixylix]

Thanks P - mine are definitely looking a bit sorry for themselves at the moment!

[Gillykat]

Mine are all in pots on a raised shelf in the polytunnel now and getting quite a bit of fruit on them now....just waiting for the sun to come back and ripen them up for me

Last year I lost most of the fruit to slugs and the polytunnel vole Not this year as I've got them raised up out of reach....I hope!

[dru`s haven]

yes mine are looking abit sad water logged i think trying to dry them out abit back in the greenhouse

[Bigmallly]

I've just re-shaped about 30 hooks out of long tent pegs to keep them off the ground so fingers crossed.

[Penellype]

Strangely enough all of the affected fruit is well off the soil, and most of it above the foliage. I had to remove another 4 nice big strawberries today as they were going the same way

[Bigmallly]

Strangely enough all of the affected fruit is well off the soil, and most of it above the foliage. I had to remove another 4 nice big strawberries today as they were going the same way

Is there such a thing as Strawberry Blight?...............off to have a goggle.

[Bigmallly]

Sounds like Botrytis grey mould.

[Penellype]

I think it must be the early stages of botrytis, although there is no fluffy grey mould visible. The pictures that look most like it are of leather rot, which as far as I can tell is mainly in the US not in the UK. Also leather rot makes brown patches on the fruit which are hard and leathery whereas mine are going soft.

[Bigmallly]

I think you have caught them early Pene.

[Martin H]

I went to the allotment to pick strawberries today. About half of the ripe or nearly ripe fruit was starting to rot, like the ones in the original post. Botrytis I think. If the weather ever dries up I'm sure it'll stop happening, but for now I'm just picking off and disposing of any decaying stuff.