ABSTRACT
Throughout the world, strawberry cultivation is equally successful in climatic conditions that are characteristically temperate in the northern latitudes, subtropical in the plains or tropical at high altitude. In spite of attractive fruits and pleasing flavour, strawberry cultivation is still in its infancy in many countries, including India, primarily because of its perishable nature. Recently, some business houses have setup a number of pilot projects for large-scale strawberry production. Farmers in the subtropics in the vicinity of cities, such as New Delhi, Mumbai and Pune in India, have been profitably cultivating strawberries during winter months using plant material propagated in the cool climatic conditions such as temperate hilly regions (e.g., Himachal Pradesh in India). Strawberry growers in the hills, thus, have a double-pronged earning potential from strawberry cultivation (Pramanick et al., 2013), that is, runner and fruit production.
