How Are Strawberries Grown Commercially?

Commercial strawberry production is an intensive, multi-step process that begins long before fruit appears and continues well after it leaves the field. Most of the strawberries sold in grocery stores come from plants grown on raised beds covered in plastic mulch, fed through drip irrigation, and harvested entirely by hand. The system is designed to squeeze maximum yield and quality out of a fruit that is fragile, disease-prone, and perishable within days of picking. What makes it work, and what makes it difficult, involves everything from how the plants themselves are propagated to how the berries are kept cold on their way to your kitchen.

Where the Plants Come From

Commercial strawberry growers rarely start from seed. Instead, they buy bare-root transplants or plug plants from specialized nurseries. Mother plants in these nurseries send out runners, and those runners develop into daughter plants that are eventually harvested, graded, and shipped to fruit-producing farms. The efficiency of this step matters because each mother plant only produces a limited number of usable runners. Research on nursery soil fumigation found that plants grown in properly fumigated soil yielded roughly 16 to 19 runners per mother plant, while unfumigated ground produced fewer than eight, along with smaller plants overall.

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This nursery phase is essentially a separate agricultural operation from fruit production. Nurseries tend to be in cooler, higher-elevation areas where plants can accumulate the chilling hours they need to produce vigorous growth once transplanted to warmer fruit-growing regions. California’s inland valleys, the Pacific Northwest, and parts of northern Europe host major nursery operations that supply transplants to growers across entire continents.

Choosing the Right Type of Plant

Strawberry cultivars fall into two broad camps that behave differently in response to day length and temperature. June-bearing types initiate flower buds during the short days and cool temperatures of autumn, then fruit in a single concentrated burst the following spring. Everbearing types, sometimes marketed as “day-neutral,” flower and fruit over a much longer season, which is why they dominate commercial production systems that aim for extended harvest windows.

The biology behind everbearing cultivars is more nuanced than the name suggests. Research comparing several everbearing varieties found that their flowering is strongly influenced by both day length and temperature. At moderate temperatures, long days advanced flower bud initiation. At high temperatures around 27°C, these cultivars only flowered under long-day conditions. They behaved as truly day-neutral only at cool temperatures below 10°C.

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For growers, this means cultivar selection has to match the local climate closely. A variety that performs well in a cool maritime environment may flower poorly during a hot summer elsewhere. Breeding programs continuously release new cultivars optimized for specific regions, balancing yield, flavor, firmness for shipping, and disease resistance.

Raised Beds, Plastic Mulch, and Drip Irrigation

Walk through a commercial strawberry field and you will see long rows of mounded soil covered in plastic sheeting, with drip irrigation lines buried beneath. This combination of raised beds, plastic mulch, and drip tape is the backbone of modern field-grown strawberry production. Raised beds give the roots a deeper, more uniform growing zone compared to flat ground, and the plastic mulch suppresses weeds, conserves soil moisture, keeps fruit clean, and can warm the soil to push earlier harvests. Black plastic is the most commonly used color.

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Drip irrigation delivers water directly to the root zone rather than spraying it over the canopy, which reduces water use and limits the leaf wetness that encourages fungal disease. It also doubles as the delivery system for dissolved fertilizers, a practice called fertigation. Greenhouse strawberry trials have mapped out the sweet spot for nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium applied this way, finding that plants need the nutrients delivered in fairly precise ratios and volumes to hit both high yield and good flavor.

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In regions with cool or unpredictable weather, growers add polytunnels or high tunnels over the beds. These are essentially unheated plastic hoop structures that protect the crop from rain, wind, and frost while extending the season on both ends. The combination of raised beds, mulch, drip lines, and tunnel covers is now standard in much of Europe and increasingly common in cooler parts of North America.

Dealing With Soilborne Problems

Strawberries are highly susceptible to a range of soilborne pathogens, fungi, and nematodes that build up when the same ground is planted year after year. For decades, the industry relied heavily on methyl bromide, a powerful soil fumigant that was phased out under international treaty because it depletes the ozone layer. Its departure left a gap that growers have been trying to fill ever since.

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Current alternatives include chloropicrin (often used alone or in blends), 1,3-dichloropropene, and various non-chemical methods. One of the most promising non-chemical approaches is anaerobic soil disinfestation, or ASD. The idea is straightforward: you incorporate a carbon-rich amendment like rice bran into the soil, cover it with plastic, and irrigate to saturation. Soil microbes consume the carbon, using up all available oxygen and creating conditions that kill many pathogens and weed seeds. California field trials have compared ASD against conventional fumigation and found it effective against critical soilborne pathogens, with yeast-based amendments also showing promise for integrating weed control into the same treatment.

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ASD is not yet a drop-in replacement everywhere. It requires large volumes of organic amendment, which adds cost, and its effectiveness can vary with soil type and climate. But for organic growers who cannot use chemical fumigants at all, it represents one of the few scalable options for managing soil health between plantings.

Tabletop and Substrate Systems

Not all commercial strawberries grow in the ground. An increasing share of production, particularly in northern Europe and parts of Asia, uses tabletop systems where plants sit in bags or troughs of growing substrate elevated to waist height. This setup makes harvesting far more ergonomic, improves air circulation around the fruit, and reduces contact with soilborne diseases entirely.

The substrate itself is usually coir (coconut fiber), peat, or wood fiber. Multi-year trials comparing these materials found that coir maintained more consistent yields when reused over multiple seasons, while peat and wood fiber produced slightly higher yields in the first year but declined with reuse. Wood fiber had the interesting side effect of producing berries with higher sugar content.

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The ability to reuse substrate matters economically and environmentally. Replacing substrate every season generates waste and expense, so a substrate that holds up over two or three seasons without hurting yield is attractive. Coir has become the industry default in many regions for exactly this reason, though its long-distance shipping from tropical countries adds its own environmental cost.

Why Pollination Is Not Optional

Strawberries can technically self-pollinate, but the difference between self-pollinated and insect-pollinated fruit is dramatic. A global review and meta-analysis found that self-pollinated plants produced roughly 43% fewer fertilized seeds per berry compared to those visited by insects or hand-pollinated. Since the tiny seeds on a strawberry’s surface drive fruit growth through the hormones they release, fewer fertilized seeds means smaller, misshapen fruit.

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Research directly comparing self-pollinated versus insect-pollinated strawberries put the economic impact in stark terms: self-pollinated fruit had over 90% deformed berries and was worth only about 8% of the commercial value of properly pollinated fruit. The deformed berries were also smaller, lighter, and had shorter shelf life.

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Outdoor fields rely on wild bees, managed honeybee hives, and other insect visitors. Greenhouse and tunnel operations, where wild pollinators have limited access, often bring in commercially reared bumblebee colonies. Growers who skimp on pollination management can end up with fields full of unmarketable, lumpy berries, so this is one area where the biology directly hits the bottom line.

Pest and Disease Management in the Field

Twospotted spider mites are among the most persistent pests in strawberry production worldwide. They feed on leaf tissue, reducing photosynthesis and stressing the plant, and populations can explode quickly in warm, dry conditions. Commercial growers have increasingly turned to biological control using predatory mites rather than relying solely on chemical miticides.

Two predatory mite species dominate this approach. Field and greenhouse trials across the southeastern United States showed that releasing the predatory mite Neoseiulus californicus at a ratio of about one predator per ten prey reduced spider mite populations within five days, and a single early-season release could maintain control for an entire growing season.

¹¹ Separate trials in Florida confirmed that both N. californicus and the more aggressive Phytoseiulus persimilis significantly reduced spider mite numbers below untreated controls.

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More recent field work comparing these two species found that P. persimilis was the slightly better performer, reducing pest mite populations by around 73–85% across two seasons, with N. californicus close behind at 69–78%.

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Beyond mites, growers contend with gray mold (caused by Botrytis cinerea), powdery mildew, various root rots, and insect pests like spotted wing drosophila, a fruit fly that lays eggs inside ripening berries. Integrated pest management programs layer cultural practices, biological agents, and targeted chemical applications, with the goal of minimizing residues on a fruit that consumers eat without peeling.

Harvesting Remains a Hand Job

Despite decades of automation in other crops, the vast majority of commercial strawberries are still picked by hand. The fruit is soft, ripens unevenly across a plant, hides under leaves, and bruises easily. A human picker can assess ripeness by color, feel firmness, and gently twist or cut the stem in one motion. Mechanizing that combination of judgment and dexterity has proven stubbornly difficult.

Robotic harvesting prototypes do exist. Researchers have developed systems that use cameras to locate ripe berries, determine picking points, and use cable-driven grippers or multi-axis picking heads to cut and collect fruit without touching the flesh. One system was specifically designed with an internal container so the robot arm does not need to travel back and forth between each berry and a separate punnet, significantly reducing picking time.

¹⁴ Another system addressed the problem of dense berry clusters by using a modular picking head that can push aside obstructing leaves and neighboring fruit.

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These robots work best on tabletop-grown strawberries in tunnels, where the fruit hangs at a uniform height with good visibility. Open-field production, with its variable canopy and ground-level fruit, is a harder environment. For now, commercial robotic harvesting exists mainly as pilot programs and supplementary systems rather than full replacements for human pickers, though labor shortages in major producing regions are accelerating investment.

Keeping Berries Fresh After Picking

A strawberry’s clock starts ticking the moment it is picked. The fruit continues to respire, losing moisture and breaking down sugars, and it is highly susceptible to mold. Commercial operations treat post-harvest handling as seriously as production itself. Berries are typically packed in the field, loaded onto pallets, and rushed to a cooling facility where forced cold air is pushed through the vents of the packaging to bring the fruit temperature down as fast as possible.

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Modified atmosphere packaging, or MAP, adds another layer of preservation. By enclosing berries in films that control gas exchange, the oxygen level around the fruit drops while carbon dioxide rises. This slows respiration and inhibits microbial growth. Research on passive MAP storage confirmed that the altered atmosphere slows bacterial growth during storage by naturally shifting gas concentrations inside the sealed package.

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More advanced equilibrium MAP systems use films specifically engineered to maintain gas levels in a target range. One such system kept carbon dioxide between roughly 4% and 8% and oxygen between about 4% and 10%, extending the market acceptance window from three days to nine.

¹⁸ Trials with enriched carbon dioxide atmospheres (up to 20%) showed additional benefits: reduced weight loss, less softening, better retention of vitamin C, and less decay.

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Even with all of this, strawberries remain one of the most perishable items in the produce aisle. The entire cold chain, from field cooling to refrigerated trucking to retail display cases, has to function without interruption. A few hours at room temperature can visibly shorten shelf life.

The Plastic Problem and Biodegradable Alternatives

Commercial strawberry production generates a lot of plastic waste. The mulch film covering every bed, the tunnel coverings, the irrigation tape, and the packaging all contribute. Polyethylene mulch film is the biggest offender on the production side because it has to be pulled up and disposed of after each season, often contaminated with soil that makes recycling difficult.

Biodegradable mulch films made from materials like PBAT (a biodegradable polyester) have been tested as replacements. Field trials found that PBAT film performed similarly to conventional polyethylene in terms of fruit quality and yield. The PBAT film began breaking down after about eight weeks on the ground due to temperature, humidity, and solar exposure, which means it can be tilled into the soil after the season rather than removed and landfilled.

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Life cycle assessments comparing biodegradable films against conventional polyethylene in California strawberry production found that biodegradable options reduced overall environmental impacts by roughly 7–18%, with the biggest reductions in fossil fuel use, eutrophication, and ecotoxicity. Allowing the films to biodegrade in soil provided the greatest benefit by avoiding waste collection and disposal entirely, while also contributing organic matter to the soil.

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Adoption has been slow, partly because biodegradable films cost more and partly because some transparent formulations let enough light through to allow weed growth underneath, defeating one of the main purposes of mulching. The technology is improving, but conventional polyethylene remains dominant in most growing regions.

Food Safety on the Farm

Strawberries are eaten raw, which makes on-farm food safety unusually important. The main contamination risks come from irrigation water, soil, and human handling. Microbiological assessments of strawberry greenhouses and packing facilities have found that while serious pathogens like E. coli O157:H7 are rare on the fruit itself, high background levels of bacteria on surfaces like harvest bins, conveyor belts, and workers’ gloves suggest room for improvement in hygiene practices.

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Irrigation water is a particular concern. A Belgian study testing strawberry production facilities found no pathogenic E. coli on the berries themselves, but detected it in irrigation water and growing substrate. The biggest risk factor was water source: rainfall collected and stored in open ponds was nearly six times more likely to be contaminated than groundwater pumped from boreholes, and untreated water was far riskier than water that had been filtered.

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Viruses are harder to control than bacteria. Field-grown strawberries irrigated with surface water have tested positive for norovirus and rotavirus, with irrigation water suspected as the source.

²⁴ This is one reason the industry has moved toward drip irrigation (which applies water below the mulch rather than on the fruit) and why good agricultural practice programs emphasize water testing, worker hygiene, and sanitation of all contact surfaces from field to packing house.