Strawberry flowers damaged by a freeze

General Fruit Growing
1

I was wondering if it would be a good idea or just a waste of time to remove flowers/fruit damaged by a freeze. I was thinking that the plant might not realize that the flowers will not fruit and continue to put energy into it. Thoughts?

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2

might not be a bad idea to deadhead them so they quickly reflower for you.

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3

I agree. If you know they won’t flower, remove them so the plant can put more energy into making new flowers. Dead things can get rot and who knows what else. Good luck.

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4

It’s a good idea, FarmGirl, if you have time on your hands. The plants will indeed waste some energy on the bloom for nothing.

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5

Thanks for the confirmation everyone.

@BlueBerry I have some youngsters with some time on their hands. :slight_smile:

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6

It may be a smart thing to do. The strawberries set in very cold weather are extremely sour at my location. I wouldn’t want to keep them anyway.

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7

If the center of the flower is black instead of yellow the fruit is toast. Removing them is up to you, I don’t think the plant will spend any extra energy on them since they won’t develop anyway. What kind of strawberries are they, everbearing, day neutral, or June bearing?

8

I would disagree.

Runner production for next year will be reduced if the blackened blossoms are not removed.
(But, if she wasn’t wanting additional plants from the runners, then it probably wouldn’t matter much.)

9

The temps when the fruit blooms isn’t what makes them sour…lack of sun as they are ripening does though.

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10

Well, I have a mixture of all, but I was removing from a select group of everbearing. I have not had a chance to check the Junes, but they may not have suffered damage due to their location. If I find damage on the Junes, I had planned to have some of them done too.

11

Hopefully the damage is minimal. Unfortunately with junebearers the first flowers to bloom often results in the largest berries, but they usually bloom over a long enough period that you’ll still get some berries.

If it were me I would judge whether or not to remove them based on the amount of time and effort. If you have a smaller patch then maybe it’s worth the time. Also if you have had issues with botrytis rot in the past, removing them might help with that disease pressure.

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