Hi Dimitri
I’m trying to grow strawberries indoors with my led lighting but so far it has not been very successful. Would like to know what PPFD lighting you used in growing them?
I’ve been growing hydroponic strawberries for close to a year. They thrive under a variety of lighting conditions, at the minimum I aim for 400 PPFD but according to some, they have maximum growth potential at 600. Of course PPFD is not uniform across grow lights so the center of my light can sometimes hit 800+ while the periphery is closer to 400.
More importantly for strawberries is your nutrient solution and aeration. For whatever reason, strawberries like a low EC of 1 to 1.2 while fruiting. In addition, I have grown a large variety of plants hydroponically and strawberries are the most prone to root rot by far. Make sure you are getting very good aeration. I don’t personally use them but there are also root rot protection products on the market you can use.
I don’t have the details on PPFD, nor a meter to measure it, I just used a LUX meter and a conversion factor - but its very unlikely that it exceeded 400. I agree with @Adamsmasherz about nutrition being more important - I think the reason I had so many blooms is because I likely over fertilized and stressed the plants.
@Pierre Sorry I missed your question.
Here are some details on my build:
https://ledgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3873#p3873
These days I’m using 6 x 22" strips (F-series 22" F562B 4000K) running at ~90% max current (powered with a HLG-240H-24A) and hanging 8-10" above the plants for a 8x2’ growing area. But I mainly use this for starting seeds and keeping my Meyer lemon alive during winter.
I tried to grow the cuttings indoors but they all end up dying. Leaves often distort and show deficiencies. So I try growing them outdoor till they are more established (which was really successful), then moving them indoors when they start flowering (Our weather here is too hot for strawberries to fruit outdoor). Once indoor the results are still the same, the growth stopped and plants are stunted.
I used the same nutrients for both the outdoor and indoor plants.
Cool, going to read through the thread more when I get some time.
Not so helpful on methods of course since they’d want to keep those proprietary but there is definitely interest in indoor, hydroponic strawberries: https://www.plenty.ag/article/driscolls-and-plenty-agree-to-grow-strawberries-indoors