Enhancing farmer’s income through strawberry cultivation under subtropical climate – a new initiative

Abstract

New initiatives are essentially required for increasing farmer’s income. Introduction of future crops in subtropics are the need of the hour in order to increase the farmers income, employment generation, to support livelihood in addition to nutritional security. In this direction an effort was initiated to introduce strawberry cultivation under subtropical environment. Ofcourse the crop is mostly grown under temperate climates; however it can be tried as an important cash crop in other climate too. The crop performed satisfactorily in subtropical Lucknow conditions of Uttar Pradesh. Three north Indian leading varieties namely Sweet Charlie, Camarosa and Winter Dawn performed nicely under different low cost tunnel structures like ventilated polytunnel, covered polytunnel and open system. A range of 176 to 260 q/ha productivity across these system were recorded in Sweet Charlie variety while in case of Winter Dawn, 175 to 245 q/ha productivity was observed. A range of 8.95-22.63 g fruit weight, 0.60-0.80% acidity, 5.33-7.17 Brix TSS, 43.78-64.68 mg/100g V itamin C and 17.19 to 25.47 mg/100g anthocyanins across the structures and varieties were estimated. In order to have an idea about the interrelationship (heat stress) among the tunnel soil temperature, air temperature and bare soil temperature, positive and significant relationship were observed among them. Farmers can get more net profit by cultivating this high value crop in this region.