Strawberries occupy a decent place in any garden. Moreover, the breeders tried to please "the taste and color" of each gardener. In this article consider the strawberry variety Honey and its characteristics.
Table of contents
Honey variety description
Breeding history
Breeders from the American city of Honoi Falls in 1979 brought strawberries and called them in honor of their city honeoye.The name of the variety in our language is Honey. Specialists managed to get a very good yield.
According to the description having a mass of berries up to 40 grams, the bush gives 400 grams of crop. Shrub gives an inflorescence of 10-15 flowers that are very well pollinated.
The fruits ripen by the end of May.. This variety fructifies once a season for two to three weeks. After fruiting bush actively grows a mustache.
Regional affiliation
The variety is frost resistant and therefore very suitable for growing in central Russia.
In the rest of the regions, by planting a young sapling in the fall, next year you can get a good harvest and collect it for four years.
Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages of Victoria Honey:
- very early maturation;
- beautiful presentation of fruit aromatic taste of berries;
- frost resistance to this variety gives a deep root system;
- high disease resistance.
Disadvantages:
- when stored for long periods, the berries are stained;
- the variety is sensitive to drought and excessive moisture.
Strawberry planting rules
To grow good plants and get a decent crop, you need first of all to choose the right place for landing.
Before landing you need to provide drainage in the garden. The soil suitable for growing strawberries is black soil with a small addition of loam.
Land in the garden is necessary fertilize with manure, as Victoria Honey will grow and bear fruit on this garden bed for 4 years.
If purchased seedlings are planted, it is better to do this in spring.. In this case, there will be a whole season ahead for the seedlings to take root.
When, when using their own seedlingswho easily take root in the new garden bed, better to plant in the fall, as in the next season the berry will delight the first harvest.
Peculiarities of care
Spring care for Victoria Honey, as well as strawberries of any other variety, is to remove the dried parts of the bush, loosening and fertilizing the soil.
Care strawberry bush is what the purpose of this bush. If the shrub is grown as a mother plantthen all flower buds should be removed.
BUT if the bush is grown for the purpose of harvest, until the crop is fully harvested, the mustache on the bush must be removed, especially if the bush was planted the previous fall.
Breeding
Honey variety grows and fruits well 4 yearstherefore, strawberries need constant reproduction. The best breeding method is with your own mustache.
To do this, select the bushes with the best characteristics, pre-tagging them at the time of fruiting. In the spring, it is necessary to plant these bushes separately and grow them like a mother plant, removing the pedicels.
To grow quality seedlings, you need to leave three or four tendrils on one plant.
The length of the mustache must also be shortened., pruning immediately after the first formed bush. In this case, the seedlings will be of the highest quality and carry the properties of the mother plant.
The ideal option is considered to be that separation of the seedling from the mother plant is best done after they overwinter. In this case, the seedling will be fully formed, and have a very good root system.
If you need a lot of seedlings, you can leave up to three young plants on one whisker. The second and third plants will be slightly weaker and slightly slower to develop, but later they will still catch up with their fellows.
There is a method of breeding strawberries by dividing the bush. It lies in the fact that the plant must be dug, then cleaned or rinsed the roots off the ground and carefully either separated by hand or cut with a knife into parts.
But in this way need plants that do not give a mustache. Honey variety is clearly not related to them, and after fruiting, it intensively gives a mustache, which can later be used to propagate this variety.
Do not forget every four years, observing the crop rotation, change the place for planting strawberries!
Diseases
Phytophtoric wilting
This is a fungal disease., in which the upper shoots are dried first, and then the roots of the plant.
This wilting is not treated. therefore the plant must be removed from the garden and burned.
Seedlings buy in proven places. Every 4 years to change the place of planting strawberries. If the landing is carried out in the fall, it will help to avoid many diseases.
Gray rot
Appears on the plant after long rains and affects the berries of the plant. In this case, you need remove affected berries. If leaves and roots are affected, the plant must be removed.
Brown spot
Distributed by spores and appears brown spots on the leaves. With such a disease should tear off all affected leaves and spray the whole plant with Bordeaux mixture.
Mealy dew
Changes the color of the leaves to purple, covers with white bloom and twists it. You can prevent the disease in advance sprinkling the plantation with a solution of copper sulfate.
Pests
Strawberry Whitefly
Laying its larvae under strawberry leaves. They feed on plant sap.
To prevent plant damage by these pests, need to plant a plant in a sunny place, as this type of pest is afraid of sunlight.
But if the pest has already settled, then bushes need to be treated with drugs such as Karate or Sharpay. This should not be done during flowering and fruiting.
Beetle beetle
Leaves holes in the leaves. Spraying against it occurs in the spring with drugs such as Corsair and Karbofos.
Nematode
Reduces strawberry harvest by half. Pest larvae die if process drug Fitoverm.
And in order to get a big harvest of delicious and fragrant early strawberries to the envy of all neighbors, use for planting strawberry varieties Honey.