Comparative study of strawberry growth and fruit quality parameters in horizontal and vertical production systems

Abstract

Innovative farming technology for alternative and sustainable production has been intensively popular in the last few decades. Therefore, the scientific community deeply attracted their technology under a vertical cultivation system. Moreover, scanty research on the strawberry plant growth and fruit quality compared with the horizontal and vertical systems. To analyse the significant effect on the growth and fruit quality in the cultivation system, four treatments as vinyl greenhouse single-layer system (T), single-layer glasshouse (T1), double-layer glasshouse (T2), and triple-layer glasshouse (T3) vertical production systems were assayed. Morphometric parameters like a strawberry leaf and soil moisture and chlorophyll content were measured. Subsequently, biometric characteristics such as fruit weight, major axis length, and medium axis length were measured, and yield attribute parameters like the number of fruits per plant and fruit quality parameters such as pH and total soluble solids (TSS) were measured at the end of the reproductive stage sixteen weeks after planting. The effects of horizontal and vertical production systems on strawberry growth and productivity were analysed using completely randomized block designs by analysing the variance with a significance level of p < 0.05. Consequently, T3 attained the maximum leaf moisture content, soil moisture content, chlorophyll content, number of fruits per plant, TSS content, and biometric characteristics such as fruit weight, major axis length, and medium axis width, followed by T2, T1, and T, respectively. However, a high pH value of strawberries was observed at T due to the low assimilate photosynthates implying low acids production. Comparing the relative strawberry growth and fruit quality at the horizontal single-layer greenhouse and vertical glasshouse system under the same conditions, T3 implied better performance. The adaptation of the triple-layer glasshouse (T3) vertical structure is a better source for strawberry production under the same conditions, according to this study. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Korean Society for Horticultural Science.