New strawberry irrigation systems

Water placement is very important to strawberry production. Under the conditions of this experiment, plants on a conventional 40-inch bed with standard furrow irrigation required the greatest amount of water and yielded the least fruit, whether figured on a per-plant or per-acre basis. In contrast, the experimental 60-inch midbed furrow-irrigated plants yielded significantly more fruit on a per-plant or per-acre basis, even though there was a 35% increase in plant population. Apparently surface application, with the water constantly moving downward, improves plant performance. Of the new application systems investigated here, only the use of porous pipe placed under the soil surface was of questionable value from the point of view of plant performance.