For more than half a century, Strawberry Festival has been pleased with its productivity of gardeners in all Russian regions. The berry grows well and bears fruit in the frosty Northwest, the sunny Caucasus, in the Central Black Earth Region and in harsh Siberia. The variety is susceptible to diseases and pests, but the flaws fade against the background of the annual abundance of delicious and beautiful berries.
Origin and description of the variety
In 1926, 30 km from Leningrad, the Pavlovsk experimental station VIR was organized. The company operates today, specializing in breeding, reproduction, obtaining elite seeds of vegetable, decorative, fodder, fruit, berry crops. In 1954, at this station, as a result of crossing two varieties of wild strawberry, Obilnaya and Premier, the festival seedlings were obtained. The author is Candidate of Agricultural Sciences Yu. K. Katinskaya. A new variety entered the state test in 1958, and in 1965 it was included in the State Register of Selection Achievements, as recommended for cultivation in nine Russian regions:
- North;
- Northwest;
- Central;
- Central Black Earth;
- North Caucasian;
- Middle Volga;
- Lower Volga;
- West Siberian;
- East Siberian.
Festival and many other varieties are mistakenly called strawberries. But according to its botanical characteristics, culture is large-fruited strawberry. It is in the capacity of wild strawberry that the Festival is listed in the State Register.
Video: how strawberry festival sings
Characteristics of the variety of strawberry Festivalnaya
A variety of medium ripening. The first berries are sung from June to July, depending on the region. The fruiting is long, the harvest is collected in several stages. The bush is tall, powerful, but compact. From under the leaves are always clearly visible brushes of berries. Peduncles, mustache, petioles of leaves - thick, juicy. The leaves are dark green, with cloves clearly defined along the edges. The berries are scarlet, glossy, often irregular in shape: conical, rounded, trapezoidal, oblate. The first, largest grow to 35 g, then grow smaller. Therefore, the average mass of the fetus is 10 g. Achenes are not pressed into the skin, are located superficially. The pulp is dense, red, juicy. Taste experts rate as good.
Festival berries often have an irregular flattened shape, their skin is shiny, achenes are not pressed
Strawberry planting
Planting time depends on the availability of planting material in your area. For example, nurseries of Western Siberia, strawberry mustaches are sold in early spring and in July - August. If you have your own plantation, then take into account one feature of the Festival - its mustache appears before the berries. If you do not remove them, you will lose in the crop. So, you need to plant your own strawberries after harvesting, preferably in late summer, when the rainy season begins.
Seedlings with a closed root system are easier to take root
Usually it is recommended to allocate a sunny place for all fruit and berry crops, but Festivalnaya, like many wild strawberries, grows well in partial shade, for example, under the sprawling crowns of apple and pear trees. Do not plant strawberries after potatoes, tomatoes, raspberries. Avoid neighborhood with them. These crops are affected by the same diseases and pests as strawberries. Prepare the ground before planting according to established rules. Sprinkle 1-2 buckets of humus or compost and 2 cups of ash evenly on 1 m². If there is no organic matter, buy organic fertilizers for wild strawberries: Fertika, Gumi-Omi, Agros, Ogorodnik, Pure leaf, etc.
Video: strawberry planting
The planting scheme is 50x50 cm, but 60x60 cm is also possible, then the grown bushes will not be closed by leaves, but will be aired from all sides.
Planting strawberries can be densified with garlic or onions. Neighboring crops will receive irrigation and top dressing along with strawberries. As a result, from one garden with the same efforts and costs you will get an additional effect - a good harvest of onions or garlic. On strawberry beds you can grow compact odorous plants that scare away pests: dill, caraway seeds, pharmacy chamomile, calendula, stunted marigolds, etc.
To get rid of weeds, to keep the soil moist, to avoid gray rot disease, the beds are covered with opaque covering material before planting, sprinkle the edges and make holes for seedlings. Another option is to put the mulch, which will serve as a layer between the berries and the ground. Hay or straw is ideal.
Strawberry Care
Features of the variety: strong bush, plenty of berries, many mustaches. Festival perfectly tolerates frosty winters. After three years of cultivation in one place, yield decreases. You need to take this into account when caring.
The Variety Festival is very productive, peduncles under the weight of berries lie on the ground, so it is better to grow this strawberry in the beds covered with non-woven material
Watering
Strawberries love water, including on leaves, and the soil under it should be always moist. The roots of this berry are located in the upper 30 cm of soil, watering is necessary until the earth gets wet to this depth. Before the growth of berries and after harvest (in May, July and early August), sprinkle, during the growth and ripening of the fruit and in the autumn, water under the root. Strawberries need water all season:
- in spring - for the growth of new leaves;
- in summer - for loading berries;
- after harvest and in the fall - to restore strength and bookmark the flower buds of next year.
Strawberries need to be watered regularly, without long breaks, preventing even the top layer of the earth from drying out. Due to the lack of moisture for 7-10 days, the yield of the current and next year is greatly reduced. For this crop, drip irrigation is considered ideal.
Video: drip irrigation for wild strawberries
Top dressing
It is impossible to overfeed strawberries, otherwise large, juicy and tender foliage will grow, attractive for pests and pathogenic fungi. Such a bush can freeze in winter, it does not plant flower buds enough. It is enough to feed the festival 4 times per season, and not every 10-14 days, as they say on packages with fertilizers:
- In early spring, as soon as the ground thaws, pour a solution of urea (50 g per 10 liters) or ammonia (2 tbsp. Per 10 liters).
- During the flowering period, feed with a complex fertilizer with microelements, for example, OMU Fertika for strawberries and strawberries (15-30 g per 10 l) or fermented infusion of nettle and other weeds (1: 5 with water).
- After harvesting, repeat the previous dressing, that is, complex fertilizer or infusion of herbs.
- In autumn, scatter under the bushes and mix with the ground 40 g of superphosphate and 20-40 g of potassium sulfate per 1 m² or burn potato tops rich in trace elements, especially phosphorus, loosen a glass of ash in a bucket of water and pour.
A year or two after planting, when the base of the bushes begin to rise above the ground, the roots are exposed, pour humus or compost under the strawberries.
Pruning leaves and mustache
Throughout the season, remove yellowed, stained, dry leaves, as well as healthy, but the oldest, lower ones that lie on the ground and can become infected by fungi from it.
Even when grown on top of the covering material, the lower leaves of strawberries often turn yellow and dry
There are recommendations after harvesting to cut off all the foliage so that diseases and pests from old leaves do not pass to young leaves, which grow again after fruiting. But such an operation weakens the bushes, young leaves are damaged, photosynthesis is impaired. Mowing and burning all foliage is worth it in only two cases:
- There are a lot of strawberries, it is impossible to look under each bush and cut old leaves.
- Almost all leaves are infected with diseases and pests.
With a mustache, a similar situation. You also need to trim them regularly, as they appear. The sooner remove, the more juice will go to the ripening of berries and laying the buds of next year. But if the goal is to propagate strawberries, then select the most productive bushes and remove their flower stalks. Then the plant will give a lot of mustache and will develop strong rosettes on them.
Video: how to distinguish a female bush from a male
Diseases and Pests
Festivalnaya has an average resistance to diseases.
Table: diseases, pests and methods of control
| Disease, pest | Description | Ways to fight |
| White spotting | The leaves are covered with round white spots with a purple or red border. | Fungal diseases accumulate on old plantations. Measures to combat them are the same.
|
| Brown spotting | Brown, shapeless spots appear on the leaves between the veins. They grow, merge, the leaves dry out. | |
| Late blight | The bush grows poorly, lags behind in development from the rest, leaves turn yellow, small berries are tied, covered with brown dry spots. If you dig up such a bush, then you can see the roots of red color, at the cut they are also painted in brick color. | |
| Gray rot | The berries are covered with a gray fluffy coating, then rot. The disease develops in wet weather and can destroy more than half of the crop. | |
| Strawberry mite | Dangerous and annoying pest, which is very difficult to eliminate. Microscopic insects (0.2 mm) settle on the most delicate parts of wild strawberries hidden inside the bush: in hearts, on flower buds, buds, young leaves. During the warm season, 4-5 generations are developing. Ticks suck out juices, the plant does not develop, it looks oppressed. The berries are smaller, the leaves are deformed, brown and dry. |
|
| Raspberry and strawberry weevil | A small bug (2-3 mm) is easily recognized by its long nose - the proboscis. With the help of this head tube, the female pierces the buds and lays one egg inside each. Larvae eat out the contents. The first buds suffer, from which the largest berries could grow. Until the moment of propagation, weevils feed on leaves, so the struggle must be started long before flowering. |
|
Photo gallery: diseases and pests of strawberries
- Signs of white spotting: round white spots with a burgundy border
- Brown, drying spots of irregular shape indicate infection with brown spotting
- The healthy root in the section is white, and infected with late blight acquires rusty shades
- The berries are covered with a coating of gray rot of mycelium.
- A bush affected by a strawberry mite loses its strength, the leaves turn yellow, deform and dry out
- Immediately after leaving wintering, weevils feed on leaves
- One can see the undeveloped, dried buds affected by the weevil
Shelter for the winter
The festival was launched in the North-Western District, therefore, it is characterized by high winter hardiness. If in your region already at the end of autumn - the beginning of winter a lot of snow falls, then there is no need to cover strawberries. It’s worth fearing for it when it is already December, it’s frosty outside, but there is no snow. In this case, be sure to cover the beds with spruce spruce branches, cut branches of raspberries, gooseberries, agrofibre folded in several layers, and other breathing materials. In the spring, as soon as the snow falls, remove the shelter, otherwise the strawberries can ripen and rot. Sometimes it’s much more dangerous not to remove the shelter in the spring than not to put it in the fall.
Video: shelter for strawberries from dill and calendula
Harvesting Festival
The most pleasant period when growing the Festival comes in July. Collect sleeping berries every 1-2 days, regardless of the weather. But for the market, transportation and storage (no more than 2 days in the refrigerator), only strawberries picked in the morning when the dew has come down and the berries have not yet warmed up in the sun are suitable.
Festival is good in frozen form. The last small berries are dried and added to tea. The variety is suitable for the preparation of winter preparations: jam, compotes, jam. The most useful and delicious treat in the winter is fresh strawberries, mashed with sugar. The bulk is filled with plastic containers and stored in the freezer. Fans of delicious alcohol prepare from the festival liquors, tinctures, liqueurs.
The famous dish - strawberries with cream - is not very beautiful, but it is unusually tasty
Grade Reviews
We, in Voronezh’s land, love the Festival ... On the market, I draw attention to the fact that if someone takes out a bucket from the Festival, they take it apart very quickly. But in the gardens it is less and less.
BABENKO//forum.prihoz.ru/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=598&start=1125
We have one variety Festivalnaya bought in a nursery for a long time. Updated mustache. I was once told in a nursery that the Festivalnaya variety is the most suitable for non-black soil - it does not freeze and does not get wet.
Konovalova Anastasia//frauflora.ru/viewtopic.php?t=5807
I have repeatedly come across the fact that among the "mustaches" taken from old varieties of the Festivalnaya type, there are non-blooming bushes and giving only a "mustache" in large numbers. They always look bigger and fatter than others, they are called “fools” in the village, I don’t know what explains their appearance, but these are not weeds. Probably something genetic.
currant//www.websad.ru/archdis.php?code=396899
The variety came to us from distant Soviet times. It is interesting to gardeners who do not like modern Dutch hybrids with very large, dense and sweet berries. Festivalnaya is a proven classic with medium-sweet and sour fruits. The ability to bear fruit abundantly in the climatic conditions of any Russian region is the reason for the great popularity of this strawberry and helps to put up with all its shortcomings.
