Are Strawberries self fertile

[Digeroo]

Bought some Strawbs in Lidl last Friday and to my surprse they are now flowering.  There are not many bees about, do I need to get my paint brush out?  Do strawbs under cloches produce fruit?

[Digeroo]

[valmarg]

Well, I always thought strawberries were self fertile, but OH says not.  So it might be as well to 'belt and brace' and get your paintbrush out. ;D

valmarg

[realfood]

They are indeed self-fertile, but they are not self-pollinating. Therefore they require the help of insects, or when grown under cover use a brush. Hand pollination is not as good as insects and can result in distorted fruit.

[Digeroo]

Perhaps I will let them out of the covers if we have a warm day.  I have never thought much about strawberries pollination before.  I suppose that they have been in a greenhouse while waiting to come into the shop.

[tonybloke]

boxes (hives) of bumble bees are used in commercial polytunnels / greenhouses to pollinate strawberries

[Digeroo]

Now that is interesting because I have read various pages online about growing in polytunnes and none of them mention the bees.

[tonybloke]

http://www.planetnatural.com/site/bumblebees.html

[allaboutliverpool]

Not all varieties are self-fertile. For example Pandora require a pollinator.

My strawberries in the polytunnel are in flower and some fruit is set and growing.

I sat and watched what was happening as there I have not seen a bee in the tunnel and noticed :-

1. A large fly or bluebottle going from flower to flower.
2. Ants on the flowers.
3 Tiny flying insects no bigger than 2-3 mm long on the flowers.
4 Spiders on the plants.

It seems that bees are not alone!
[attachment=1]
The smaller plants are "Cambridge Favourite" and the larger ones "Maxim"

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Allaboutallotments/140595012660360?v=wall

[valmarg]

Oh dear, I buy the plants, hand over to Oh to grow, and more particularly produce fruit.  So long as I end up with plenty of strawberry shortcake, tiramisu, etc I'm very happy.  The growing bit is down to OH.

I take your point realfood about the difference between self pollinating and self fertile.  I feel a bit of a dumbo on that. ;D

Tonybloke, your comment on the beehives in the polytunnels of strawberry farms rings a bell.  The farm we go to has acres of polytunnels and loads of beehives in them.

The farm we go to sells asparagus and strawberris (mainly).  The farm shop will be opening on 7th April for asparagus sales.  Drooool.  Plenty of hollandaise sauce,

valmarg

[Robert_Brenchley]

There are loads of pollinators apart form bees, and blowflies do an excellent job on flowers where the nectar is exposed, so a long tongue isn't needed. They're commonly used for pollinating vegetables under cover, at seed banks for instance.

[Digeroo]

Having been sure there were no bees about, I sat and watched yesterday afternoon and things were surprisingly busy.  There were at least 5 on the red currant bush, and several buzzing about the honesty.  And at least two bees went close to the strawbs.  I decided to take the covers off during sunny days and then put them on again at night.  Also noticed some very small creepy crawlies on the flowers.

The apples blossom is just about to open and they are usually full of bees.  

And there are the pollen beetles which do the job for the courgettes etc though not seen any around yet..