Sami shows how to propagate strawberry runners into new strawberry plants the easy way.

Firstly what are strawberry runners ?

Strawberry runners are basically offshoots front the main plant that the strawberry plant uses to spread itself as in nature it creeps along the ground by shooting out runners which take root and grow into new strawberry plants which themselves shoot out runners and so the plant spreads and can in a relative short time cover huge areas of land.

The runners as the below photo illustrates consist of stems expanding stems from the mother to the daughter plant which feeds the new plant until it has managed to take root in soil and then the stem dies away.

As you can see strawberry runners are quite numerous and a great advantage for gardner's as they make it relatively easy to grow new strawberry plants. The traditional method is to place the new plant whilst still connected to the mother plant in new soil. Sami is going to experiment with a potentially more convenient method which is to just snip the runner plants off from the mother plant and plant them on their own or in a row of new plants as will illustrated below.

STEP 1 - Snip the Runner plant off from the mother plant

STEP 2 - You will probably find that there is another shoot growing off the daughter plant, so snip that off as well so that the plant uses all of its energy to grow

STEP 3 - Place the plant onto soil, be it directly on the ground, small pot or some other container.

And that is the basic process, compete the process for all of the other daughter plants and in little over 10 min's from start to finish you will have many new baby strawberry plants.

Sami achieved 9 plants in some 10 minutes.

This method is much easier, and cleaner than the traditional method of leaving daughter plants still attached to the mother plant for several more months!

Whilst very useful for growing new plants, however if you do not intend on growing new plants then ensure you cut them all off at the earliest so as to ensure that the strawberry plant focuses all of its energies into growing strawberries.

Stay tuned for updates to see how this method of propgating strawberry plants turns out, as if it works it will be great news to strawberry planters all over the world!.

By N Walayat

http://www.walayatfamily.com

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