Are you looking for a fertilizer for your strawberries that helps you keep pests and diseases under control this season? This fruit is, in actual fact, an infructescence; a composition of smaller fruits joined together in a fleshy receptacle forming an aggregate fruit or polyachene. While it is one of the most productive and easy-to-grow crops, it is also a plant that tends to attract a higher number of pests and diseases, if not correctly looked after.
To prevent one of them quickly killing off your strawberry crops, we’ll explain the main diseases and pests affecting these crops and how to prevent them by implementing a good sowing and fertilization process. Shall we begin?
- What are the most common diseases that can affect your strawberry crops?
- Fertilizer for strawberries: how can it help you prevent biotic stress in your crops?
- Look after your strawberry crops with the most advanced BRANDT technology
What are the most common diseases that can affect your strawberry crops?
Before talking about the benefits of an adequate nutrition in strawberries and the most beneficial fertilizers to prevent biotic stress or, in other words, diseases and pests, it is important to know what they are and how to identify them in your crops. We’ll list some of the most common ones below:
Strawberry diseases
Gray mold (Botrytis cinerea Pers.) is one of the most frequent diseases in strawberry crops. The biggest risk associated with this disease is that the infection and spread of the fungus can occur in the plant both before harvesting and after, during storage or transport. It is easy to identify as the affected tissues of the plant become covered with a grayish dust, giving it an off-white color. This disease affects both the leaf and the fruit.
Powdery mildew (Sphaerotheca spp.) is easy to identify as it forms a kind of white dust produced by the fungus with a cotton-like appearance. It particularly affects young leaves and usually appears in spring-summer, lasting until autumn. Although this disease does not tend to result in the death of the plant, it does weaken it, causing necrosis on the leaves and weakness in the fruit.
Soil fungi cause the most damage to strawberry crops. They affect the plant from the root and lead to rotting. They can also affect the fruits once they have been picked, so it is advisable to keep strawberries at low temperatures after harvesting.
Strawberry pests
The red spider mite (Tetranychus urticae) is the most harmful pest to strawberry crops. It thrives in high temperatures (above 30°C) and dry environments. It can be identified by small yellow dots that appear along the nerves of the plant and the leaves, with a powdery appearance, while cobwebs sometimes also appear on affected leaves. At its most severe, this pest can lead to the death of the crop.
The Thrips (Frankliniella occidentalis) pest affects the flowers and fruits of strawberry crops. The resulting injuries cause the necrosis of the flowers, causing them to wither. They also contribute to the softening and premature detachment of the fruit.
Fertilizer for strawberries: how can it help you prevent biotic stress in your crops?
One of the factors that most contributes to preventing diseases and pests in strawberry crops is to implement an adequate sowing and fertilization process.
Correct crop nutrition stimulates the bioavailability of macronutrients and micronutrients in plants, essential for ensuring that strawberry crops grow strong, increasing their yield and guaranteeing the optimal quality of the resulting strawberries.
Look after your strawberry crops with the most advanced BRANDT technology
At BRANDT, we are leaders in the development of products with a high technological and innovative component, helping to prevent diseases and pests in crops and looking after the overall health of the plants.
One of the products with demonstrated effectiveness in protecting strawberry crops is BRANDT ManniPlex Calcium. The latest tests conducted with this product showed that it provides increased protection in preventing the appearance of post-harvest fungi and delaying the rotting of the strawberry after picking. This has a positive effect on the economic return of this crop due to its high demand on foreign markets such as Germany, France and England and the narrow time frame available between when it is harvested and when it is placed on sale to the final consumer.
Another product that can help your strawberry crop is BRANDT Plant Start, a phosphorus-rich solution that stimulates root growth and helps overcome biotic stress conditions, caused by fungi, bacteria and pests, which can all attack plants. This special biostimulant also contains osmoprotective adjuvants that improve cell turgor.
As you can see, the type of fertilizer used on your strawberry crops is key to ensuring a healthy, pest- and disease-free harvest, with optimal fruit production. At BRANDT, we believe in sustainable and crop-friendly agriculture. Not only will our products help you prevent these biotic stress factors, they will also improve the quality of your production and increase your yield.
