Tag: Strawberries

Fresh and vibrant strawberries.

Growing Strawberries in the Florida Home Garden

by Paul Roberts
April 20, 2026

It is New Year’s Day. In the cool gray dawn, you sleepily slide your feet into a pair of slippers, still half-dreaming of the night before. No one else has woken up; the first fruits of the year are yours, and yours alone. At that thought, ... READ MORE

Category: Fruits & Vegetables
Tags: Craig K. Chandler, Home Garden Crops, Horticultural Sciences Department, Natalia A. Peres, Sriyanka Lahiri, Strawberries, Sydney Park Brown, Vance M. Whitaker
Three persons evaluating strawberries for decay and damage

Postharvest Lab Research Targets Strawberry and Blueberry Fruit Quality and Shelf Life

by Joe McQueen
April 13, 2026

The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Indian River Research and Education Center’s (IRREC) Postharvest Technology lab, led by Mark Ritenour, is researching how to reduce decay in strawberries and blueberries ... READ MORE

Category: Agribusiness, Agriculture, Crops, Food Safety, UF/IFAS, UF/IFAS Research
Tags: Blueberries, Fruit Quality, Postharvest, Strawberries
Close-up of strawberries, with ripe red and unripe greenish-yellow fruit, and a white flower.

Robots may eventually help kill weeds that impede strawberry yield

by Brad Buck
April 13, 2026

BALM, Fla. --- Think of University of Florida scientists Nathan Boyd and Arnold Schumann a bit like surgeons. Except in this case, their operating room is a strawberry field. With their research, Boyd and Schumann hope to eventually help ... READ MORE

Category: Agriculture, Farm Management
Tags: #aiatuf, Algorithm, Arnold Schumann, Artificial Intelligence, Citrus Research And Education Center, Gulf Coast Research And Education Center, Horticultural Sciences, Nathan Boyd, Precision Agriculture, Robots, Soil Water And Ecosystem Sciences, Spraying, Strawberries, Weeds

UF/IFAS awarded 1st Ph.D. plant breeding program in Florida, one of few in USA

by Brad Buck
April 13, 2026

Working in labs and fields across Florida, a new generation of students will start earning a Ph.D. in plant breeding from the University of Florida – the first program of its kind in Florida and one of a few in the nation. The UF/IFAS College ... READ MORE

Category: UF/IFAS Research, UF/IFAS Teaching
Tags: Artificial Intelligence, Citrus, College Of Agricultural And Life Sciences, Corn, Crops, Elaine Turner, Environmental Benefits, Fiber, Forage, Gene Editing, Genetics, Global Food Security, Hunger, Lettuce, New Program, Peanuts, Ph.D., Plant Breeding, Strawberries, Tomatoes, Vance Whitaker
Hands holding a bunch of ripe strawberries with green leaves.

UF study gives strawberry growers a ray of (UV) light at the end of their pest tunnel

by Brad Buck
April 13, 2026

BALM, Fla. --- For a few years, University of Florida plant pathologist Natalia Peres has used an ultraviolet light system to thwart strawberry pathogens. Peres even published a study this year that showed the system helps control powdery mildew. Two ... READ MORE

Category: Crops, Pests & Disease
Tags: Biological Control, Chilli Thrips, College Of Agricultural And Life Sciences, Joseph Montemayor, Mites, Natalia Peres, Pests, Sriyanka Lahiri, Strawberries, UVC Radiation
Hands holding a bunch of ripe strawberries with green leaves.

Fall: A time to grow and eat your own strawberries at home

by Brad Buck
April 10, 2026

While Florida is known as the winter strawberry capital of the world, you can plant strawberries at home now. Yes, fall is officially here – even if the temperatures don’t always match the calendar date. That means the air is soon going ... READ MORE

Category: UF/IFAS Extension
Tags: Breeder, Cultivars, Fall, Florida Master Gardener Volunteer Program, Gulf Coast Research And Education Center, Home Gardening, Horticultural Sciences, Strawberries, Vance Whitaker, Wendy Wilber
Two scientists fly a drone in a research field.

Ag engineer comes ‘home’ to UF/IFAS; uses AI to help reduce farm labor costs

by Brad Buck
April 8, 2026

Dana Choi grew up in South Korea but considers Florida her second home. She spent several years on the main campus of the University of Florida, getting her master’s and doctoral degrees in agricultural and biological engineering from the ... READ MORE

Category: Agribusiness, Agriculture
Tags: Agricultural And Biological Engineering, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Dana Choi, Gulf Coast Research And Education Center, Robotics, South Korea, Strawberries, Sustainable Agriculture, Tomatoes
Close-up of a strawberry plant with green leaves and red stems, set against a black covering. Ripe and unripe strawberries are visible in the background.

A $130 million drain: UF researcher looks to genetics to rein in wasteful strawberry runners

by Brad Buck
April 8, 2026

Strawberry growers pour roughly $130 million a year, nationally, into a surprisingly stubborn problem: a part of the plant that sabotages fruit production. These fast-growing offshoots – called “runners” – stretch out from the mother ... READ MORE

Category: Agribusiness, Agriculture
Tags: DNA, Doctoral Student, Fruit Production, Genetics, Growers, Gulf Coast Research And Education Center, Kaitlyn Vondracek, Labor, Nurseries, Seonghee Lee, Strawberries, Strawberry Runners, UF Plant Breeding Ph.D. Program
Cluster of unripe green tomatoes on the vine amidst leaves.

UF scientists receive grant to study fumigation impacts on soil health

by Brad Buck
April 2, 2026

Soil health is an important aspect to strawberry and tomato production. Farmers often apply a type of pesticide called fumigants to the soil months before planting to manage soil health. Fumigants reduce harmful diseases such as Fusarium ... READ MORE

Category: Pests & Disease
Tags: Crops, Fusarium Wilt, Gary Vallad, Grant, Gulf Coast Research And Education Center, Mary Lusk, Nathan Boyd, Nitrogen, Root-knot Nematodes, Sarah Strauss, Soil Health, Soil Microbes, Soil Microbiome, Soil Water And Ecosystem Sciences, Soil-borne Diseases, Southwest Florida Research And Education Center, Strawberries, Tomatoes, USDA-NIFA
Close-up of ripe and unripe strawberries with a white flower among green leaves.

Strawberry growers globally could benefit from UF/IFAS research into dangerous disease

by Brad Buck
April 2, 2026

Strawberry farmers worldwide may get help from new University of Florida research that shows a way to battle one of the fruit’s fiercest foes. The key: combine genomic data with phenomics. The genome amounts to all the DNA in an organism. ... READ MORE

Category: Agriculture, Crops
Tags: Detection, Disease, Genes, Genomics, Gulf Coast Research And Education Center, Horticultural Sciences, Phenomics, Plant Breeding, Powdery Mildew, Ronald Tapia, Sensor, Seonghee Lee, Strawberries, Vance Whitaker

Subscribe For More Great Content

IFAS Blogs Categories