Strawberry Runner Growers
Strawberry breeding is a highly competitive global industry
In the early 20th Century, a new piece of legislation in the United States – Plant Patent Act of 1930 – gave breeders of plants the same rights over their ‘inventions’ as mechanical and chemical inventors had through patent law. Breeding in the USA stepped up in earnest when the Federal Department of Agriculture started to fund breeding programmes through Universities. Many varieties of strawberry are now bred in the US at the University of California and the University of Florida.
Strawberry propagation occurs via runners and not seed
If you’ve grown strawberries before you’ll have noticed that often the plants throw out several long, leafless stalks known as ‘runners’. Established strawberry plants will send out multiple runners over the soil surface. Each runner has a tiny plant at its end and these can be rooted and grown on to produce new plants. This is how large commercial quantities of strawberry plants are produced by highly specialised runner growers.
To propagate varieties for commercial sale in Australia, runner growers are certified to ensure a high standard of plant propagation and that varieties with Plant Breeders’ Rights protection are only grown under the correct licence conditions.
CERTIFIED PROPAGATORS
Red Jewel Nursery
2/128 Dangar St ARMIDALE NSW 2350 | 02 9057 3000 / 07 4684 1133
Red Jewel Nursery is a family-owned business that has been supplying high-quality strawberry plants to commercial fruit growers across Australia for over 20 years.
Our primary nursery is located at Ballandean in southern Queensland, which is for the production of “leaf on” short-day bare root plants for supply to the winter production regions of Queensland and Western Australia. The Nursery is located 5km to the west of Ballandean, in the hills at the southern end of the Granite Belt in Southern Queensland at an altitude of 750 metres. The mixture of climate, fine sandy soil and altitude in addition to the significant water storage available has proven successful for the production of quality strawberry runners.
Red Jewel established a specialised strawberry plug plant nursery near Armidale in Northern New South Wales in 2018 in response to increasing demand from fruit growers for plug plants as growers look to change their production systems from “in-ground” to substrate production. The site was chosen because of its temperate climate and abundant supply of good quality irrigation water. Being located at over 1000m of altitude provides cool nights and, in conjunction with having a high solar exposure, ensures that plants have an optimum growing environment prior to being dispatched to growers for early fruit production. We have significant scope to further develop this site as demand increases for plug plants.
Toolangi Certified Strawberry Runner Growers’ Co-op Ltd
The Toolangi Certified Strawberry Growers Co-operative (TCSRGC) was originally formed in 1960 and is the longest serving runner producer in Australia. Today the TCSRGC is comprised of six grower families dedicated to supplying healthy plants that deliver high profits for fruit growers.
The TCSRGC is located in the Great Dividing Range at Toolangi, Victoria, in a state-declared ‘Plant Protection District’. This means that many plants and plant materials (including strawberry fruit) are prohibited from entering the district, and this helps protect against the entry of strawberry pests and pathogens. The high elevation at Toolangi ensures that strawberry plants receive optimum ‘chill’ for high fruit production. The area is surrounded by state forest, which also acts as a barrier against air-borne pests.
The TCSRGC supplies both bare-rooted runners and plug plants to growers all over Australia.
Planting material from the TCSRGC is certified through the Victorian Strawberry Industry Certification Authority (VSICA).
ASPAA High Health Accredited Producer
Based near the small town of Ouse, 95km North West of Hobart, the farm sits at an elevation of 85m with irrigation direct from the Derwent River. The property has an average summer high temperate of 24˚C and an average summer low temperate of 9 ˚C and a monthly average rainfall over summer of just under 30mm.
JCLM Farming has established its own mother stock production system over the last three years and can now provide commercial quantities of plants to meet priority orders. The main varieties grown on the 80ha site are: Red Rhapsody, Scarlet Rose, Aussie Gem, Sundrench, Sunglow and Parisienne Kiss for the Australian winter season and Summersong and Scarlet Silk for summer fruit production.
S A and K L Perry Certified Strawberry Runner Growers
Perry Certified Strawberry Runner Growers Pty Ltd is owned by Shane and Kerri Perry and are independent runner growers accredited under VSICA. Shane grew up on a commercial strawberry runner farm and made the transition to producing his own certified runners 30 years ago.
They farm 16 acres in Toolangi using a combination of hydroponics under protective igloos and in-soil production following fumigation with methyl bromide.
Planting occurs between August and October avoiding the wet winter period and harvest between March and July each year. Most plants are distributed following harvest; however, a number are frozen and distributed between July and January.
Plants are distributed throughout Australia to home-gardeners, commercial nurseries and commercial fruit growers – the largest being Driscolls.
The Seedling Factory
Strawberry plug and seedling production has recently been added to The Seedling Factory’s newly developed 40-acre nursery facility in Oldbury.
The state-of-the-art nursery was constructed with advanced technology to streamline workflow from seeding through to germination, robotic stacking, layout, and finally to the pickup and dispatch of final products.
The nursery produces approximately 70 million seedlings for the vegetable, Greenlife, and forestry industries annually.
Contact Ben Funnekotter for information on the new strawberry plug and seedling side of their business.
