Best Strawberry Varieties?

Last year I grew strawberries from seeds: Loran, Beltran, Pikan and Toscana. Loran and Beltran gave me a small crop in the autumn: sweet tasting berries. They also made plenty of runners during the summer and I replanted them in their permanent bed. Pikan and Toscana have pink and magenta colored flowers. I am going to use them as a groundcover under the bushes. My goal is to find sweet strawberries. I’ll make an update if I still like them next year.

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Sorry it took me so long to reply. :smile:

Thanks Patty S. for your answer about Marshall. I had heard about it before and how expensive it was but I didn’t remember any more about it. I guess the chance of more disease prone in the East and the price, leave it off my list.

Mr Clint - thanks for your input. I’m always interested in growing fruit, but I grow organically and growing fruit always seems harder than vegetables for some reason.

I haven’t tried strawberries for awhile, so I’m trying them again. I did buy just a few six packs of plants locally last year. One was June bearing and the other an Everbearing. I removed all the berries to let them establish and allowed the runners to spread. This year I wanted to add some more. Different varieties.

Thanks for the suggestions for varieties. I’d heard that ‘Quinalt’ was favored by many growers. Looks like I have a few names here on this thread to try.

Aren’t you lucky to be able to grow them so late! That’s a very nice looking berry developing. :smile:

Antmary - That sounds like an interesting project, to grow them from seeds. Did you purchase the seed somewhere? You didn’t get berries the first year did you?

Thanks to all for the responses, enjoyed the conversation. :smile:

While they are not even close to being as productive, I enjoy the little Alpine strawberries. They don’t spread by runners, so I use them as an edging plant at the front of a flower bed because they won’t roam and cause the havoc a regular strawberry with runners might. The variety I have right now we planted a while ago and it has stayed in exactly the same area for years. With only about 15 plants, it is only enough for a regular taste on the way in from the car after work during the spring and summer. So now I’m planning to add another 5 varieties, including some of the white and yellow ones that are supposed to have even better taste than the reds. I got the seeds from the [Strawberry Store][1] and will be trying:
Pineapple Crush
Yellow Wonder
Reine des Vallees
White Solemacher
Atilla (this one runners, but I’m putting these in a window box so the runners can hang over)

I’m also adding some of the more common regular varieties including Earliglow and Jewel for June bearers and Ozark Beauty for ever-bearing. But now that I keep reading about Mara, I may need to try that as well. But these will all go in more dedicated areas where they can be contained.

I always prefer trying a bunch and seeing what does well and tastes great for my situation. Life is too short to ever grow less than 3 varieties!
[1]: http://www.strawberryseedstore.com/buyseeds/index.php

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Zendog, I tried Ozark Beauty for the everbearing characteristic for 2 years and never got berries after the June rush. Came from Stark Bros (possible they were mislabeled). Heard the same from a couple other people as well. Last year I tried Tristar, they produced throughout late summer and were still putting out flowers and fruit at the end of Oct. FWIW, Mike

Liz,

I tried Tristar and Quintalt a couple years before. I cared very well for them, they grew nicely, but I did not like berries. They were small, sore and not really productive. I was happy when they died after the last very cold winter. I bought my strawberry seeds from Swallowtail garden seeds, but you can buy these varieties elsewhere, it is not the only source. The seeds are kind of expensive, they are all novelty strawberries. Growing strawberries from seeds is not an easy project, but it is possible. I did get a few berries in September and they tasted sweet. I am really curious how they do this season.

I grow pineberries, and find that they are easy to grow, June bearing. They taste different than regular strawberries and I like the flavor a lot. They tend to lay on the ground, and I have had problems with grey mold. Not so much on pineberries as any berry that lies on the ground. I solved this by early spring sprays of Captan in acidic water… Also keeping a decently thick mulch. I tried various cultivars and they tend to taste slightly different but the best is White D. Seek that one out. They are hard to tell when ripe until you grow them awhile. They are not good until fully ripe, and are soft. So I never see this cultivar as very commercial. White D is a decent producer.
Here are some photos of this cultivar.




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I received pear scionwood from Corvallis ARS a few weeks ago. I would have gotten gooseberries and currants as well, but they broke dormancy early due to the warm weather, per the email they sent. This doesn’t guarantee that they will send strawberries, but it is worth a shot.

I had the same problem with Ozark Beauty, but mine came from Home Depot (back when I first started in 2010). I wonder if they had the same source. What I have (who knows what it really is) is an OK June bearer, but nothing special.

Bob, revisiting this thread, as we have another strawberry message thread going. I decided to take Scott’s recommendation to try to contact the ARS via email, letting them know I was a CFRG and also had a very large home orchard, and got a very nice reply back. I was able to order Marshall strawberries from ARS, and expect them this summer. Hopefully I can get them all the root. I’m going to plant them in a raised bed, since I just have too much snail/slug pressure in my yard, and they are huge snail/slug magnets.

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zendog, thanks for the information about where you found strawberry seeds. Sounds like a fun project.

I ended up ordering ‘Sparkle’ and ‘Earliglow’ from Nourse and have them in the ground and growing already.

We put some in a raised bed and some not. Looking forward to seeing how they do.

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Thanks for the update. I haven’t come close to trying many of the normal strawberry varieties (unlike apples), so I’ll hold off on going after any exotic ones from ARS. But, it’s good to hear that they reacted positively and that it may work.

Currently, I’m growing Surecrop (eh- not great), the misidentified Ozark Beauty (also not great, but a bit better than Surecrop), Sweet Charlie (added last spring), and Cabot (I’ll be planting 25 from Indiana Berry in the next week).

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I posted elsewhere about a taste testing in CA, and Albion won hands down. Reported by Don Shorr on his Davis CA radio show. He said his favorite was Sequioa. The guy has grown everything. I need to try both of these sometime.

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Mara des Bois wins hands down IMHO!

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I’ll just say this, strawberries tend to be regional. Some varieties will do better in some areas than others. They also respond extremely well to thinning.

For example you can alter the characteristics of a variety like Earliglow through thinning. Earliglow berries start medium sized and get smaller as the Earliglow season progresses, so it is often beneficial to thin them and get larger first berries and forgo the later harvest. In other words cultural practices can vastly alter a strawberry.

I would use a company like Indiana Berry or Nourse and ask them what performs the best in your region.

Alpines are something to consider also.

These all do well in the midwest.

earliglow
cavendish
allstar
jewel
sparkle

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Strawbs are pretty easy, not very expensive and readily available here. So I dedicated a 4x4 trial bed a few years ago. The bottom line is that there are no bad berries. So texture, production, plant vigor, sweet tart balance, and juiciness were all factors to consider. Albion, Camarosa, Sequoia and Quinalt emerged as my favorites. Albion was probably the best overall. Great balance and not so juicy as to handle poorly. Camarosa is super firm and sweet, they can be manhandled and plants are very vigorous. Sequoia is well balanced and juicy but does not handle as well as others. Quinalt puts out well through Winter and are very good and firm. A mix of June bearing and ever bearing is probably best.

I once mixed June and Ever-bearing in the same bed, once. A few years back i just started treating the entire patch as June bearing, let the Jewels take over and added some Sequoia a few years ago.

Moley,

Sequoia is highly-rated as a California strawb, where it is usually grown. How is it performing for you here in the humid East? Does it taste good grown here? Disease issues? Please dish…

i do get some rot (really cool looking Blue rust and normal grey/orange rust/rot this year) and some leaf spotting, I do not spray anything, I lost about 5% from an 8x4’ bed, that yielded over 18# of Berries. My trick is to pick early and often, just like voting in the democratic primary :kissing: . I freeze 50% right away for canning or ice cream, eat the rest fresh or for a quick dozen pints of jam.

We lucked out on the East Coast with a super dry May, Berries did not start to show signs of decline until 2 weeks in. Jewel ripened June 1- 14, Sequoia 7-21st. Few days ago I mowed it down to 3" above the crowns, fertilized, mulched and watered. I may look into getting some FlavorFest, next spring to trial, I’ve been reading good things, and part of me wants to head down to Rutgers next month for This.

I purchased my sequoia from a local nursery who frequently will bring me in stuff by request, basically anything from the Monrovia catalog, small price premium but for hard to find stuff, works well enough.

Well, just got a late delivery of Mara des Bois and Albion in. The Albion look to be in pretty poor shape. The Maras look okay. Going to pick up some Sequoia at the store this afternoon, and re-do my raised bed to be mostly strawberries. Sadly, it is pretty humid here right now - not so great for strawberries. But, we’ll see if I can get them going without any fungal issues. I have a drip system set up in my raised bed, but having issues with some of my sprinkler system’s pressure, so I may have to supplement with overhead watering, sadly. Don’t want to do that, but no choice until I can problem-solve my sprinkler issues. Will be getting Marshall starts from the ARS this fall, and will add them to the bed. So, that will be 4 different varieties. Will see how they all do for me. Wish I had enough room for a dedicated strawberry raised bed, but out of room and spots with sunshine in my back yard, now.

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I thought this was a very odd time to be planting strawberries, since they’ve pretty much had it for the season here. Even the Monterreys that are touted as continuing to bear during hot weather have basically ceased any production.

Then I looked at your weather forecast. Your highs right now are close to my lows last week. It’s more like a very brief time during our spring there, and San Diego has a better chance of rain this evening than I do.