How Many Runners Will A Strawberry Plant Have? Every year strawberry plants produce runners that can be used to propagate plants. This characteristic is an important one for the home gardener as it allows them to increase the number of plants they have and replace the existing plants.
This is particularly important because plants older than 3 years tend to be significantly less vigorous with respect to the production of fruit so if they are not replaced the output from your garden will steadily decline. So how many runners can a strawberry plant produce in a season? And does it vary depending upon the variety being grown?
Strawberry plants typically produce between 5 and 7 runners per year, however, this can vary between 2 and 10 runners depending upon the variety being grown according to the study by Purdue University. However, it is important to note that the study suggests having a maximum of 2 to 3 runners developing from each plant.
The reason for this is that the production of runners redirects the energy of the plant away from the development of the crown. This has a negative effect on the plants’ yield the following year. However, if you are wanting to increase the number of plants significantly you can opt to sacrifice the performance of existing crowns and focus on producing new plants.
It is also important to note that some runners can actually produce multiple plants off each runner so it is possible in some cases to produce many new plants from an existing strawberry plant. In the table below the average number of runners produced per variety is provided for your reference. If you would like information on the yield of these varieties click here.
| Variety | No. of Runners Per Plant |
| Festival | 10.6 |
| Chandler | 9.4 |
| Sweet Ann | 8.5 |
| Radiance | 7.7 |
| Sweet Charlie | 7.1 |
| San Andreas | 6.0 |
| Camino Real | 5.7 |
| Camarosa | 5.3 |
| Albion | 5.2 |
| Benicia | 2.7 |
How To Systematic Manage The Age Of Your Strawberry Plants To Ensure Maximum Production
For lots of home gardeners, it is difficult to keep track of the age of the strawberry plants which means it is difficult to get the most out of the space devoted to strawberries. One of the easiest ways to keep track of the age of the plants is to have three beds, a one, two, and three-year-old bed.
This means that once the strawberries in the three-year-old bed have completed their harvest they should be disposed of and replaced with new plants that have been generated from this season runners. This will avoid a steady decline in the yield which often happens to home gardeners.
