Field notes: sowing is done — now the nursery does the slow work

Date: August 6 Place: Our nursery at partner HiMedia’s greenhouse in Igatpuri, Maharashtra

This is a note we owe you from the middle of the season. In June we counted the germination and said we would raise the pace of sowing. By August 6 that was done — this year’s sowing was finished, every tray in its place — and the nursery had moved into its next, quieter phase: raising the seedlings.

What “raising seedlings” actually means

A strawberry seedling in a tray cell has very little room for error. The plug of media is small, it dries out fast, and the plant’s whole root system lives in it. So the work in August is mostly measurement, repeated.

Each round through the house we check the growing media — its EC (how much dissolved nutrient it holds) and its moisture content — and the air around the plants: temperature and humidity inside the greenhouse. The feed is adjusted from those readings. Too much salt in the plug and the young roots burn; too little and the plants stall. The monsoon outside makes the humidity swing, so the checks are not once-and-done.

The photo above is what most of a nursery day looks like: a meter in a cell, a reading, a decision.

Trays on the move

Sowing in stages means the trays are at different ages. Some cells are still showing the first green flecks of a cotyledon; others have plants with three or four true leaves that will soon be ready to move on. The team carries trays between benches to keep each batch under the conditions it needs.

Lakshmi’s tray

Every tray carries a tag — cultivar, tray number, sowing date and the name of the person who sowed it. This one reads SAKURA, tray 48, sown July 4, by Lakshmi.

Lakshmi is also the name of the goddess of wealth and abundance, and in an Indian nursery a tray sown under her name feels like a good omen. We will take it. A fruitful harvest is what everyone here — in Igatpuri and in Japan — is working toward.

What comes next

The seedlings grow on in their trays until they are big enough to leave: a firm root plug, a few true leaves, a crown that can take being handled. Then they move into their growing positions in the vertical pots — and as it happens, we have already written about that day. This note fills the gap in between: the weeks where nothing dramatic happens, and the crop is quietly made.

ICHIGO® is the premium strawberry brand of Vegibus India. Field notes are our running record from the nursery and the field — the unpolished part of growing a Japanese-standard strawberry in India.