ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Hortic.
Sec. Controlled Environment Horticulture
Volume 4 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fhort.2025.1621763
This article is part of the Research TopicHighlights in Indoor Farming: Limitations and OpportunitiesView all articles
Characterizing the Growth, Morphology, Productivity, and Fruit Quality of Twenty-Three Strawberry Cultivars in an Indoor Environment with Sole Source Electric Lighting
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Extension, The Ohio State University, Columbus, United States
- 2Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, United States
- 3Agricultural Research Service, National Clonal Germplasm Repository, US Department of Agriculture, Corvallis, United States
- 4Agricultural Research Service, Horticultural Crops Production and Genetic Improvement Research Unit, US Department of Agriculture, Corvallis, United States
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Indoor farming enables consistent production of superior-quality strawberries through optimized conditions. As strawberry growth, production, and quality can be largely affected by both genotype and environment, it is important to identify cultivars with traits desirable for indoor production. Twenty-three publicly available strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) cultivars were selected from the USDA-ARS National Clonal Germplasm Repository as possible genetic resources for future breeding for indoor production and evaluated in a walk-in growth chamber with sole source electric lighting. Among strawberry cultivars examined, 'Mara des Bois' had desirable traits for indoor farming, including long-day photoperiodic response, early production, higher average weekly yield, and low sensitivity to dormancy-inducing photoperiod. Fruit quality traits, including size, calyx area, shape, color, total soluble solid content (Brix), titratable acidity (TA), and firmness were evaluated. 'Chandler' produced the largest fruit, 'Sweet Sunrise' showed the lowest calyx-to-fruit area ratio, and 'Benton', 'Hood', 'Mara des Bois', 'NW 90054-37', and 'Puget Beauty' fruit had a relatively high Brix-to-TA ratio. Correlations among productivity, quality, and morphological characteristics revealed the potential to enhance both productivity and quality by optimizing environmental conditions. The information on strawberry plant growth, development, and fruit production provided in this study can assist indoor growers in cultivar selection and potentially contribute to the development of new strawberry cultivars that thrive in indoor production environments.
Keywords: Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), strawberry, Hydroponics, Plant factory, Soilless cultivation
Received: 01 May 2025; Accepted: 04 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Lin, Kim, Bassil, Oliphant, Hardigan and Kubota. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chieri Kubota, Department of Horticulture and Crop Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, United States
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