Strawberry Cultivars for New York

Abstract

Choice of cultivars is one of the most important and difficult decisions the strawberry grower has to make. To read a typical nursery catalog, all strawberry cultivars are equally "superior" to all the rest. Obviously, it is not that simple. The relative performance of different cultivars can vary enormously. Some cultivars will easily yield twice as much fruit per acre as others, but may or may not prove acceptable for the end use of the buyer. There is a bewildering number of strawberry cultivars commercially available, and new cultivars are being named every year. To make matters even more complicated, each cultivar can vary in its performance from region to region, from year to year, and even from farm to farm. Lastly, the relative value of different cultivars is inherently subjective. People naturally differ in their appraisal of flavors, and growers assign different levels of importance to different characters such as productivity versus firmness versus quality.