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Year-round strawberry availability in the United States relies primarily on day-neutral cultivars grown in temperate climates like California and Florida. However, such production methods are often unsustainable, relying on soil fumigation, low biodiversity in monocultures, and high post-harvest shipping costs. In recent years, consumers seem more interested in sustainable and locally sourced produce. This study aims to establish optimal propagule and interrow cover cultivation for New York berry growers to extend the local strawberry season, maximize their yields though day-neutral production, and create a more pollinator-friendly production system. Fragaria x ananassa ‘Albion’ was planted in plasticulture in a RCBD in Ithaca, NY for the 2022 and 2023 growing seasons. Plants were sourced as four propagule types from different developmental stages to stagger fruiting cycles. These were grown under three interrow cover treatments comprised of exclusion netting, bare ground, and flowering cover which differed in composition of vegetative growth between rows of strawberries. Fruits were collected weekly to observe marketable and unmarketable yields through the growing season. Proportion fruit set and native pollinator visitation observations were made. Statistics were performed in R using mixed linear models. My results showed that plug propagules produced significantly higher marketable yields than the other treatments through the season. However, marketable yield proportions of total yield varied depending on the growing year due to drastically different weather conditions. Additionally, exclusion cover had significantly higher marketable yield than the other cover types, despite excluding pollinators. Interrow ground cover had no significant effect on the number of visits to strawberry or diversity of native pollinators in either year. Native bee species showed different peak visitation times over the growing season from both years. Overall, cultivating day-neutral strawberries at different developmental stages leads to an extended local strawberry season, native bees comprise most strawberry pollination visits, and interrow cover did not affect bee visits to strawberries.

Abstract: A major barrier to reclamation after oil sands mining is lack of commercially available, diverse native plant seeds and propagules for revegetation. Potential of LFH (forest floor material) developed on coarse textured soil for establishing native plants and how salvage, placement and storage affect plant establishment and soils were studied. Abundance and composition of vascular plants in the soil propagule bank were determined in a growth chamber. In large field experiments, LFH salvage (10, 25 cm) and placement (10, 20 cm) depths were compared to standard peat-mineral mix used in oil sands reclamation. On a smaller scale, LFH developed from fine and coarse textured soil was salvaged (10, 30, 60 cm) and replaced (2, 5, 10 cm) on mineral and peat-mineral mix substrates. Storage effects were determined on soil chemical and physical properties, seed germination and viability, root viability and plant emergence, considering length of stockpiling, stockpile size, construction season and soil texture. Effects of plant derived smoke water and potassium nitrate on germination of cold stratified and non stratified seed from 18 native boreal plant species were determined in a growth chamber. LFH placement increased species richness, density and canopy cover of total, native, woody, herbaceous and non native plant species on most substrates. Shallow salvaged LFH resulted in greater species richness, canopy cover and plant density than deeper salvaged LFH. Greater placement depths resulted in increased canopy cover. Stockpiling LFH resulted in a significant decline (up to 100 %) in seed viability for 24 of 27 boreal species in small and large stockpiles at depths below 1.0 m. Anaerobic soil conditions developed soon after construction and persisted below 1.0 m in large stockpiles; anaerobic conditions developed in smaller stockpiles. Native boreal plant seeds responded to smoke water and potassium nitrate. Vaccinium myrtilloides had the largest increased germination using smoke water, and the most reduced germination using potassium nitrate. LFH conservation is critical for development of diverse, self-sustaining forested ecosystems on mined lands. Direct placement is better than stockpiling because seed viability, nutrients, organic matter and soil biota are difficult and costly to replenish once degradation occurs in stockpiles.