ASHS 2025 Conference

The strawberry industry relies on the production of disease-free daughter plants (DPs). Challenges in open-field nurseries have prompted research into controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) as an alternative to improve DP yield and quality. Growing strawberry stock plants indoors with stolons (runners) oriented vertically downward has been shown to increase DP production. However, information on detailed plant architecture and plant-light interactions remains limited. This project evaluated the impacts of photoperiod, light quality, and light distribution on DP yield and quality through a series of experiments. Firstly, shortening the photoperiod from 20 to 12 hours while maintaining the same daily light integral increased DP yield by 18%. Spatial distribution analysis revealed that a majority (60%) of DPs developed under suboptimal light conditions (