Why grow strawberry under glass rather than in the field?

Timing and consistency of grade. A protected crop supplies the market in weeks the open ground cannot reach, and a controlled root zone lets fruit quality hold across a long picking period rather than flushing and fading.

Crops · Fruiting vegetable

Strawberry.

Q: Why is greenhouse strawberry grown on suspended gutters?

Picking at waist height instead of ground level, and a root zone entirely under control. Strawberry is a labour-intensive crop, and the gutter system exists as much to make picking sustainable as to manage water and salt for a crop that is sensitive to both.

Q: What separates everbearing from seasonal strawberry types?

How the plant is triggered to flower. Everbearing types crop over an extended period and are the basis of the Dutch fresh crop under glass. Seasonal types follow a short-day rhythm and deliver a concentrated harvest into a defined window. Each is planned as its own crop, because a continuous picking rhythm and a peak week ask different things of labour, cooling and pack capacity.

Soft fruit grown at working height, on gutters that recirculate.

Grow strawberries under glass The varieties

Picked ripe, or not worth picking

Strawberry carries more vitamin C than most fruit in the produce aisle, and nearly all of it is laid down in the last days on the plant. So is the sugar, so is the aroma, and so is the colour that makes the fruit look worth buying. A strawberry does not improve after it is picked. It only spends what it already has.

That leaves distant fruit one option: pick early and firm. Fruit cut before it is ready survives the journey and arrives red, because the skin colours whether or not the flesh finishes. What never arrives is the flavour and the vitamin content the last days would have added. The berry is also among the most perishable things in the fresh chain, so whatever is not eaten quickly is thrown away.

A greenhouse near the market answers both problems at once. Fruit can be picked at full ripeness because the distance is short, and it can be picked in months when the open field is bare. That is why protected strawberry exists as a commercial crop, and it is the plainest case in the whole crop range for growing close to the people eating it.

Nutrition facts

Strawberries, raw

Per 100 g

Energy: 32 kcal
Fat: 0.3 g
Carbohydrate: 7.68 g
Sugars: 4.89 g
Fiber: 2 g
Protein: 0.67 g
Sodium: 1 mg
Potassium: 153 mg
Vitamin C: 58.8 mg

Source: USDA FoodData Central, FDC 167762

Which strawberry?
The commercial classes.

Fresh fruit in the right market window. The class you sell decides the plant load, the harvest rhythm and the house.

Everbearing Strawberries

Everbearing strawberry flowers and fruits repeatedly, supplying a market across a long window rather than a single flush.

Seasonal Strawberries

Seasonal strawberry flowers in response to day length and produces a concentrated crop for a defined market window.

Strawberry under glass is a different proposition from strawberry in a field: the crop is grown on suspended gutters at working height, picked standing, and supplied to market in weeks the open ground cannot reach. The premium sits in that timing and in consistency of grade. It is also a labour-intensive crop, and the gutter system exists as much to make picking sustainable as to control the root zone.

What the crop needs

Growing on suspended substrate gutters puts the root zone entirely under control and lets drain water be collected and recirculated. That matters for a crop this sensitive to salt and to water availability at fruiting, and it is the reason a protected strawberry crop can hold quality across a long picking period rather than flushing and fading.

Everbearing or seasonal

The two commercial systems are separated by how the plant is triggered to flower. Everbearing types crop over an extended period and are the basis of the Dutch fresh crop under glass. Seasonal types follow a short-day rhythm and deliver a concentrated harvest into a defined window. Each is planned as its own crop, because a continuous picking rhythm and a peak week ask different things of labour, cooling and pack capacity.

DutchGreenhouses® specifies the structure, climate, screening and irrigation around the strawberry system, its picking window and the local climate, so fruit quality holds across the whole period rather than the first flush. Get in touch to plan a strawberry greenhouse.

The greenhouse behind strawberries