Winter cover affecting freezing injury in strawberries in a coastal and continental climate

The study was conducted in two continental and two coastal experiments on f ield-grown strawberries on high beds. It was shown that use Of winter cover reduced freezing injury in plants without snow cover during winter. Cover positively affected development of flower stalks, increasing the number and the proportion of flower stalks that were large. Also, it reduced injury i n flower primordia and thus the number of misshapen fruits, and made the pl ants produce larger fruits. As a sum, these effects increased the yields up to 9% in the continental and 45% in the coastal fields. The yield differen ces of the coastal vs. the continental experiments were partly due to more freezing and thawing at the coastal than at the continental fields, and par tly influenced by a snow roof to keep the snow off the plants in the contin ental experiments. Generally. covering with fleece, bubble plastic and brow n-paper-laminated bubble plastic gave a better result than straw for winter covering. When straw was used it was essential to remove it in early sprin g. Using fleece and bubble plastic as winter covers, there was no differenc e in yield by removal of the cover in the first week of April or May for th e cvs 'Bounty' and 'Senga Sengana', but cv. 'Korona' reacted generally posi tively to prolonging the covering period. Covering from 1 September to 1 No vember only, had a negative effect on yield compared with no cover, while c overing in April only was equal to no covering.