There has been a lot of buzz lately about a technique some folks are using to turn dormant crowns into an actively growing plug plant. To avoid confusing these plants with traditional plug plants (starting from a rooted tip), we are coining the name “crown-plug”.

These plants have many potential advantages and uses including:

• planting efficiency – plug plants can be planted with a water-wheel planter, significantly reducing labor costs and increasing speed
• variety selection – growers who would like to plant plugs have found the variety selection from nurseries to be limited, and the availability at desired times can be an issue for northern growers
• early starts – establishing the crowns in plug trays in a greenhouse in early spring will give a head-start to the growing season. This can help the plants out-compete weeds (Junebearers) or increase summer yields (day neutrals)
• late summer – strawberry plug plants can handle transplanting during hot summer months with less stress than dormant crowns. Dormant plants can only tolerate cold storage for so long, this procedure gets the plants growing before they expire in the cooler.

Check out the detailed procedure here.