Free Download: The Guide for Growing Strawberries

While strawberries are not an easy crop to grow, CEA technologies can help provide ideal conditions to improve production windows, yield per area and fruit quality.

As growers discover these benefits, hydroponic greenhouse production of strawberries continues to grow across the world.

This free guide walks you through the key details — including lighting, substrates and irrigation, and plant management — for growing strawberries in a hydroponic system inside greenhouses.

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The Advantages of CEA in Strawberry Production

Growing hydroponic strawberries

By Karla García

Strawberries (Fragaria × ananassaDuch.) are an important crop grown in the U.S. with a market value of more than $2.2 billion dollars, producing 1.12 million tons of strawberries in 2019. Most production of strawberries in the U.S. is done in open fields. In the U.S., year-round production is achieved by shifting production between regions across California and Florida. Recently U.S. growers are confronting challenges in open field production. In California, where more than 90% of the total strawberry production is done, annual acreage for strawberries is getting lower due to prolonged drought periods in the field; also, dry weather is increasing pests, making it challenging to manage and control diseases (Green, 2014). Another challenge of U.S. production is the emergence of strong competitors in the strawberry market, Mexico and China.

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2017 retail sales of organic fresh produce reach nearly $5 billion

The Organic Produce Network and Nielsen report sales of organic fresh produce items approached $5 billion in 2017, an 8 percent increase from the previous year. Nearly 2 billion pounds of organic produce were sold in grocery stores last year, which is a 10 percent volume increase from 2016.

At U.S. retail stores, sales of organic fresh vegetables were $2.4 billion. Organic fresh fruit sales exceeded $1.6 billion. Sales of nearly $1 billion in organic value-added produce items brought total sales to $4.8 billion in 2017.

In 2017 organic packaged salad was again the leading organic fresh produce item, approaching $1 billion in sales. Packaged salad still accounts for one in five organic dollars.

Topping the sales in organic fruit were berry crops, which saw a 22 percent increase in volume sales. Organic berry sales, which include strawberries, blueberries and blackberries, topped $586 million in 2017.

http://www.organicproducenetwork.com/article/384/nielsen-and-opn-announce-organic-fresh-produce-retail-sales-reach-nearly-5-billion-in-2017