The strawberry is unique among common produce because its seeds are visible on the exterior of the fruit. This unusual characteristic often leads to questions about how to harvest them and whether they are viable for planting. The red, fleshy part we enjoy is not botanically the fruit, which adds to the confusion about what the actual seeds are and where they come from.
The Botanical Location of Strawberry Seeds
The small, speckled dots covering the surface of a ripe strawberry are technically the true fruits of the plant. Botanists refer to these tiny, dry specks as achenes, and each one contains a single seed inside its hard shell. The large, red, juicy part that we eat is not derived from the flower’s ovary, making it an accessory fruit. Instead, this sweet tissue is an enlarged receptacle, which is the part of the flower stalk that holds the reproductive organs.
Extracting Seeds from Fresh Fruit
Harvesting seeds directly from a fresh strawberry requires carefully separating the achenes from the surrounding pulp. For small-scale collection, a simple scraping method can be used by gently rubbing the surface of a ripe berry with a knife edge or toothpick to dislodge the achenes. These achenes should then be spread thinly on a paper towel or plate and allowed to dry completely for several days to prevent mold.
For a larger batch of seeds, a blending and straining method is more efficient, though it requires precision to avoid damage. The strawberries are placed in a blender with water and pulsed on the lowest setting for only a few seconds to separate the achenes from the pulp. Viable seeds are heavier and will sink to the bottom of the container when the mixture settles. The floating pulp and non-viable seeds are carefully poured off, leaving the good seeds behind to be rinsed and dried. After drying, strawberry seeds must undergo a cold, moist period called stratification before they will germinate.
Commercial Sources for Specific Varieties
While harvesting seeds at home is possible, most gardeners and commercial operations rely on purchased seeds or plants for reliable results. Commercial seeds are available through specialized seed catalogs, online suppliers, and garden centers. Purchasing seeds ensures you receive specific varieties, such as June-bearing types that produce a large crop once a year, or day-neutral varieties that fruit continuously throughout the season.
These seeds are often from open-pollinated or standardized strains, guaranteeing the resulting plants will grow true to the advertised type. This predictability is important because strawberries purchased from a grocery store are typically hybrid varieties. Seeds saved from a hybrid fruit will likely produce plants with unpredictable or inferior characteristics that do not resemble the parent. Commercial suppliers also provide seeds that are already cleaned and prepared, eliminating the labor-intensive process of home extraction and drying.
Why Growers Prefer Runners Over Seeds
Most commercial and home growers propagate strawberries using runners, which are long, horizontal stems, or stolons, sent out by the mother plant. This method is a form of asexual reproduction, producing new plants that are exact genetic copies, or clones, of the parent. Runners ensure that desirable traits like high yield, disease resistance, and fruit quality are maintained in the new generation.
Runners root quickly and establish themselves much faster than a seed, which must first germinate and then grow into a mature plant. Growing from a runner, or a purchased bare-root plant, typically allows for a harvest in the first year after planting. In contrast, a plant grown from a seed requires a long period of cold stratification and may take up to two years to produce a significant crop. The cloning advantage of runners offers growers a reliable and time-efficient way to expand or renew their strawberry patch.