Causes of Poor Strawberry Growth, Spring 2025

Though many PA growers are reporting that their strawberry plantings are looking better than they expected, others are not.

There are many things to consider when sorting out potential causes of poor growth at this time of the year. Three major aspects to consider are:

1. what your plants looked like this spring compared to what they looked like last fall,
2. which varieties you are growing, and
3. what your overwintering practices were.

If your plants did not grow well last fall, issues then could still be the cause of poor growth now. Last fall, strawberry plug plants were diagnosed with several diseases, including Neopestalotiopsis mainly in 'Ruby June' and also in 'Chandler', anthracnose crown rot in 'Chandler', Phytophthora crown rot in 'Malwina' and 'Chandler', and angular leaf spot in 'Malwina'. With Neopestalotiopsis or anthracnose crown rot, plants grew poorly after planting and many of them (10 to 50%) died during the fall. With Phytophthora crown rot and angular leaf spot (a bacterial disease, Figure 1), plants here and there wilted and collapsed, but this wasn't obvious until a couple of months after planting.

Powdery mildew was common in 'Galletta' and 'Ruby June'. While some problems are found mostly in certain varieties, variety can only be used as a clue, and not to make a definitive diagnosis.

If plants did grow well last fall, but didn't look so great this spring, remember that we had our first "normal" winter in a long time with cold temperatures, and winter protection with row covers or straw was definitely needed to avoid winter injury to the crowns and leaf dessication from the wind. Winter injury in the crown will appear as a more consistent or diffused color in the crown in mild cases, and "corkiness" or complete death of the crown in severe cases, whereas there is usually a noticeable change in color from healthy cream to brown or reddish-brown with diseases.

Leaf dessication can be differentiated from leaf diseases as leaves will often be consistently dry, brown, and crispy around the edges of most leaves with dessication, and this will show up across a large area of the planting. Dessication is possible even in well-watered plantings because once the soil freezes, the roots can't take up water to replace what the leaves have lost.

In matted-row plantings, many growers reported that plants got off to a slow start, but that is normal in springs where soil temperatures remain cold – strawberry plants just don't grow that fast until the soil warms up. Winter injury and "traditional" diseases (Botrytis, Phomopsis) have been the main causes of symptoms in matted-row plantings and plasticulture plantings of "matted-row" varieties in PA thus far. 

When diagnosing problems, it is helpful to cut through several plant crowns from top to bottom. You can often tell more by cutting the crowns in this way rather than cutting the crown crosswise.