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Has Anyone Ever Burned Their Strawberry Patch?
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Posted by gonebananas 7/8 (My Page) on Fri, Nov 20, 09 at 21:00
| About 65-70 years ago it was mentioned by an experienced and prominent horticulturist that you could help renovate a strawberry patch by light superficial burning. In late winter the light hay mulch cover over strawberries in northern climes (used perhaps to catch snow or simply insulate itself, I forget) could be fluffed up a bit by a fork or rake and then burned. The fluffing was presumably to get heavy fuel away from right on top of the buds and to make a fast, light, and spread-out flame. Maybe to help dry the mulch cover too. The burning got rid of old leaves, disease spores, dormant bugs, etc.
Has anyone still around ever tried it? |
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RE: Has Anyone Ever Burned Their Strawberry Patch?
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Goneb,
Never tried burning a strawberry bed but our wild low bush blueberries are routinely burned to ground level as a way to make way for the new stems and to kill diseases and perhaps some bugs. That process works very well. With strawberries it may also work if the crown of the plant is not killed by too much heat. I would add more straw later to keep the frost from heaving the plants. Burning as a cultural method may be a lost art. I believe I read where the organic pioneers, the Nearings, kept beds going far longer than was thought possible. They did not use any burning however. Sounds like this could be a good experiment. I do know that burning over fully frozen bb plants burns only to the ground level. I just remembered that we also burn old fields that have lots of wild strawberries and they are not harmed by the burning at all.
Some strawberry diseases however are soil born and would not be killed by burning. Planting varieties resistant to these diseases and burning plus using the traditional renovation techniques may indeed allow one to keep the beds going longer.
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