Alternative growing media can work just as well as coir for strawberry crops, so long as irrigation and nutrition are optimised, it has been revealed.
Agricultural consultancy ADAS, which is running strawberry trials with soft fruit grower New Farm Produce, found there was no significant difference in total yield or percentage Class 1 fruit for bare root strawberry plants in coir-reduced or coir-free product blends.
There was a slight reduction in yield in the trial blends compared with the coir control sample, however ADAS believe that with optimised irrigation and nutrition there is the potential for coir-free products to perform just as well.
Barry Mulholland of ADAS, who is leading the research, said: “We have been using irrigation and nutrition regimes designed for standard coir media.
“Despite this, the trials show these coir-free and coir-reduced media do have the potential to perform as well as or better than coir, with improved understanding of blend performance and appropriate adjustments to irrigation and nutrition.”
While strawberry growers have already replaced peat with coir to a large extent, there is still concern about the industry’s reliance on a single raw material.
In response, coir-reduced and coir-free blends are now being tested as part of a project to develop responsibly sourced growing media blends as alternatives to peat.
A model is being developed to predict the performance of any given blend of growing media for containerised production and extensive trialling is then undertaken to validate and refine model predictions.
The aim is to give growers confidence in a growing media’s commercial performance to facilitate the rapid uptake of new blends.
In April growers were invited to view ASAD’s strawberry trials at New Farm Produce’s base in Lichfield, Staffordshire – an event facilitated and promoted by AHDB Horticulture.
Commenting on the trails’ findings so far, Stephen McGuffie from New Farm Produce said: “Both coir-free and coir-reduced show some promising results as we look at the plant growth, however we will be more informed on performance when we have the harvest results for this season.”
The strawberry trials are taking place using the Malling Centenary variety, planted into troughs in nine commercially available growing media treatments: one nursery coir control, four coir-reduced products and four coir-free products.
Growers attending the NIAB Leafy Salads Open Day on 22 June will be able to hear more about the research into responsibly sourced growing media for blocking. The latest annual grower summary from the project will soon be available on the AHDB Horticulture website.
