Seminar_Moein Moosavi-Nezhad _12.11.23.pdf

Abstract: The US strawberry industry, worth more than $2.3 billion, needs healthy, high-quality transplants every year for fruit production. Due to ever-continuing issues in open-field strawberry propagation, research is focused on controlled-environment agriculture as a potential alternative to not only increase strawberry tip yield but also to produce healthier, virus-free transplants (rooted tips). A limiting factor to improve the economic feasibility of controlled environment strawberry propagation is the stock plant yield (number of tips per mother plant). There is a lack of information on the impact of photoperiod on stock plant yield in CEA, specifically on long-day cultivars. Here, we examined 12, 16, and 20 h photoperiods with the same DLI of 26 mol m-2 d-1 on ‘Monterey’ as a long-day cultivar. Photoperiod treatments were conducted by placing four plants per chamber (3 chambers) with two replications on time. The chamber environment was maintained at 26 °C temperature, 400 ppm CO2, and 60% relative humidity. Morphological parameters and biomass partitioning was done on both mother plants and tips. Photosynthetic parameters were measured nondestructively on the mother plants. The highest number of daughter plants was achieved under the 12-h photoperiod. Other experiments (i.e., plant density based on LAI, and tips positioning assessment) are now running and the initial results will be reported in the seminar.