Cut them if you want fruit. Keep one or two only if you want new plants. In a container, a strawberry cannot do both well at once.
What Runners Are
A runner is a long, leafless stem the plant sends out sideways. At intervals along it a small plantlet forms, ready to root wherever it touches down. It is how strawberries spread.
Why Cut Them
Runners and fruit compete for the same energy. A plant left to run produces fewer and smaller berries. In a Kratky container the runners also have nowhere to root, so the effort is wasted, and they tangle and shade the crown.
How and When
- Check weekly through the warmer months, when runners appear fastest.
- Snip each one close to the crown with clean scissors.
- Remove them while they are short. The longer a runner grows, the more it has already taken from the plant.
Using Runners for New Plants
Runners are free plants, and a plantlet rooted in water is already adapted to hydroponics.
- Leave one runner attached to a strong, healthy plant.
- Rest the plantlet in a net cup of clay pebbles over a small container of weak nutrient solution, with its base just touching the moisture.
- Wait two or three weeks for roots to form.
- Cut the runner between the mother plant and the new one.
Take runners only from vigorous plants. Many growers replace their plants each season this way, since yield falls as a plant ages.
Related guide: Strawberry plant basics for Kratky growers.
