Camarosa and Chandler

Hydro Harvest Farms has the best variety of Strawberries to grow hydroponically. Here is some info on the careful thought, study and practice of choosing the right strawberry plants

Unlike most produce or fruits, the strawberry is not often grown from seed, even though each strawberry contains hundreds of seeds. It is not that the strawberry can't be grown from seed but, rather, because it is not practical or economical. New, more mature plants called "daughters" are produced from a mother plant in an area where the climate is conducive to growing strawberry plants during the summer and early fall. These "daughters" start as runners. The commercial industry refers to them as tips. The runners are harvested from certified disease-free stock. The runners develop into plants in about eight weeks. If they are allowed to root in the soil where its mother plant is grown a rooted strawberry plant is produced. From the time this plant is replanted to production is 7-9 weeks, depending on the variety and age. On the other hand some "daughters" are not allowed to root into the soil and instead are cut and rooted in a potting soil containing a high percentage of peat moss or coconut coir. These tips become plugs or fully rooted plants. Some plants are also started from tissue culture and micro-propagation. However, it is not as important how the plant is started but where the plant is grown and how to get the plant you need. There are basically 3 types of strawberries. June-bearers are the most widely planted type of strawberry. June-bearing strawberries produce one crop per year with the majority of the fruit ripening in June. These are prevalent in more Northern Climates. The second type of strawberry is the everbearing strawberry. Everbearing varieties typically produce a spring and late summer crop with little flowering or fruiting during the remainder of the growing season.

Hydroponic gardening has the most success with the day- neutral and short day varieties.

The day-neutral and short day varieties are the third and newest type of strawberry. They are regarded as an improved, more productive everbearing-type strawberry. Most of the outdoor grown strawberry types are short day varieties; they will initiate flowers under short day lengths (less than 14 hours) and cool conditions such as occur in winter in temperate climates, and will then flower and fruit as conditions warm up in spring. Day neutral varieties are commonly used by greenhouse and hydroponic producers as they can be manipulated to crop out of season provided warmth and sufficient light is provided. Day neutral and short day strawberry varieties are induced to flower and fruit when temperatures are high enough and these plants can be given an 'artificial chilling' period to initiate flowers. Varieties of "short day" strawberries include, Camarosa and Chandler, these varieties offer strawberries to pick from December to June in the hydroponic systems.  Hydroponic growers typically buy in either chilled runners or plugs which have had a period of four to eight days under refrigeration (34 - 37�F); plant these in a warm environment and they will flower within a few weeks. The artificial chilling under refrigeration tricks the plant's physiology into thinking winter has occurred and once they are planted out into the warmth and light, the plant will resume its spring growth pattern of foliage growth, followed by flowering and fruiting.

Here's a list of fun and interesting strawberry facts and trivia:

�  A strawberry has, on average, 200 seeds

�  Strawberries are the only fruit with seeds on the outside. It is argued that for this reason, it cannot be considered a real berry, since berries carry seeds on the inside

�  Ninety-four percent of U.S. households consume strawberries at least once a year

�  Strawberries often gain top positions in surveys as the favorite fruit: in 2007 over 53 percent of seven to nine-year-olds picked strawberries as their favorite fruit

�  A French noblewoman at the time of Napoleon, Madame Tallien, used to bathe regularly in strawberry juice, using 22 pounds per basin. She didn't bathe daily though

�  Strawberries have a long-dated history of medical uses, the Romans for instance used them to alleviate symptoms of fainting, kidney stones, inflammation, diseases of the blood, liver and spleen, throat infections, bad breath, attacks of gout, melancholy and fever

�  The etymology of the name "strawberry" is still largely unproven: some argue that they were named in the nineteenth-century by English children who picked the berries, strung them on grass straws and sold them as "Straws of berries". Others theorize that the name was derived from the nineteenth-century practice of placing straw around the growing berry plants to protect the ripening fruit

�  Charles V of France ordered, in the 14th century, that twelve hundred strawberry plants be grown in the Royal Gardens of the Louvre

�  Strawberries are the first fruit to ripen in spring

�  Strawberries were a symbol of perfection and love: for instance, folklore says that if you split a double strawberry in half and share it with a member of the opposite sex, you'll soon fall in love. Medieval stonemasons carved strawberry designs on altars and around the tops of pillars in sacred places such as churches, as a symbol of perfection

�  The world's largest strawberry shortcake is hosted in the annual strawberry festival in Lebanon, Oregon

�  In some places of Bavaria, country folk practice a spring ritual of tying small baskets of wild strawberries to the horns of their cattle as an offering to wood elves. The legend states that the elves, who love strawberries, will offer their gratitude producing healthy calves and an abundance of milk

�  In Belgium there's a museum entirely dedicated to strawberries

�  Strawberries are grown in every state in the United States and every province of Canada.

�  The strawberry plant belongs to the same family of roses, genus Fragraria, together with other fruits such as apples and plums. The name of the genus comes from the Old Latin word for "fragrant". In modern Italian, the word for strawberry is still "fragola"