Strawberry cultivation practices in soilless growing substrates: A review article

Abstract

The strawberry cultivation practices have witnessed severe production losses caused by soil-borne diseases. Therefore, to avoid such type of diseases, a trend towards the use of soilless growing media in strawberry is increasing day by day throughout the world (Jansen, 1997) [6]. This system avoids sterilization of the soil, which has negative impact on the environment and human health. Further, this technique allows the growers to extend the cropping period and thereby increasing the fruit yield many fold with a minimum effort given in management practices (Jafarnia et al., 2010) [5]. The soilless growing substrates can broadly be classified into two categories viz. media other than soil (solid substrate) and water (hydroponics). Soilless cultivation is highly suitable for areas with contaminated or unfavorable soil condition for strawberry cultivation.