Strawberry Black Prince

The range of varieties of garden strawberries is increasing every year. Thanks to breeders, new plants appear that differ not only in taste, but also in the color of the berries. There are few gardeners who would not want to have exotic plants on their site.

Strawberry Black Prince is an unusual and promising variety, distinguished by glossy maroon berries. Description, characteristics, reviews of gardeners, features of agricultural technology will be covered in the article.

Description

The strawberry variety Black Prince is relatively young, which is why a limited number of gardeners know about it. The creators are breeders from Italy. Strawberries are intended not only for summer cottages, but also for large agricultural enterprises.

According to the description given by the producers, and, according to the reviews of gardeners, the Black Prince strawberry belongs to mid-season varieties. Already in the second decade of June, the first berries ripen.

You can collect strawberries until the fall, because the plant has a long fruiting.

Bush features

4-5 years after planting, the plants surprise with sprawling and powerful bushes, resembling potatoes or tomatoes from afar. The foliage of a medium-sized strawberry is rich green, glossy, with a clearly visible corrugation.

Garden strawberries of Italian selection are distinguished by powerful, tall peduncles, on which a large number of ovaries are formed. Already in early June, the bushes are strewn with green berries. Here they are in the photo.

When the mass ripening of berries begins, the flower stalks bend down to the ground. In the first years after planting, a sufficient number of mustaches are formed for reproduction. But the older the bush, the lower the mustache. This must be taken into account so as not to be left without strawberry seedlings.

berries

The fruits of the variety are rather dark, perhaps for this reason such a name appeared. There are many seeds on the maroon surface of the berries. They are also dark, located on the surface, so the berries of the Italian selection are prickly to the touch.

Berry weight up to 50 grams. Dense fruits have the shape of a truncated cone. Inside the strawberry pulp is rich red, without white streaks and voids. The berries are delicious, sweetish with a subtle hint of sourness.

Application

Strawberry Black Prince, according to the description of the variety and reviews, belongs to the berries of universal use. They can be eaten fresh, make jam, marmalade, jams, homemade wine liqueurs.

Productivity

Italian breeders have created a high-yielding strawberry variety Black Prince, which can be grown throughout Our Country both in open and protected ground. For long-term fruiting, one bush of garden strawberries gives up to 1200 grams of delicious, sweet berries with strawberry flavor.

Farmers highly appreciate the variety, because with the right agricultural technology, you can collect up to 20 tons per hectare.

Characteristics

Not only the original taste and external signs of strawberries attract gardeners. But you can better understand the features of the variety by getting acquainted with the characteristics.

First, let’s talk about the merits of the Black Prince:

1. High palatability, plentiful productivity.
2. A strawberry variety can be grown in one place for up to 10 years, increasing the yield of finished products every year.
3. Dense berries can be stored for up to two weeks, they do not flow and do not lose shape.
4. Excellent transportability contributes to the cultivation of varietal strawberries on an industrial scale.
5. The variety is winter-hardy, tolerates frosts up to 20 degrees steadfastly. A slight drop in spring temperatures does not frighten plants.
6. Strawberries rarely get sick due to their high immunity.

Despite such an abundance of advantages, the variety has some disadvantages:

• plants hardly tolerate drought, so soil moisture must be constantly monitored;
• there are difficulties in obtaining planting material, since adult strawberry bushes Black Prince do not produce mustaches.

The variety of Italian selection is tested and reliable:

Technology features

In order for the strawberry variety to successfully bear fruit for many years, you need to choose a good site for planting it.

Site Selection

1. It is necessary to plant seedlings of the Black Prince in fertilized light soil. On heavy clay plots, a large crop cannot be obtained.
2. The beds are located in sunny areas protected from cold winds. Plants of the variety do not grow well in places with a high level of groundwater. If there is no other place in the country, you will have to make high ridges, on the bottom of which reliable drainage is laid.
3. When preparing a seat, a large amount of organic matter is introduced and the soil is treated with peat-humic fertilizers, for example, Flora, Fitop. This will improve the structure of the soil. A bed with strawberries should not be next to potatoes or eggplants.
4. The best neighbors are cereals, beans, peas, carrots, onions and garlic. These plants are also planted between strawberry bushes.

Planting of seedlings

You can grow seedlings of the Black Prince variety from seeds, but this process is laborious. It is best to use seedlings that you need to purchase from reliable suppliers, for example, in the seed company Siberian Garden, Altai Gardens, Becker.

Landing steps:

• after digging, holes are prepared, half a liter of warm water is poured into each;
• strawberry seedlings are lowered into a hole, the root system is straightened and sprinkled with soil;
• the heart should remain above the surface at a height of 1-2 cm;
• the soil must be well compacted to remove air pockets;
• after that, the plantings are watered and sprinkled with mulch.

For mulching, you can use rotted sawdust, straw, or cut green grass that has not yet formed seeds.

While the Black Prince strawberry takes root, it needs to be watered regularly. The drip irrigation system does an excellent job, which is easy to install.

Care of plantings

By itself, strawberries of the Black Prince variety are not capricious. But, like any cultivated plant, it requires compliance with growing technology. Let’s consider this question in more detail.

Watering and loosening

Plants of this variety, as noted in the description, do not react well to drought. Watering is especially important, and daily, immediately after planting seedlings, during flowering and ripening.

You should not be zealous with watering, because with stagnant water, diseases of the root system can develop, and the berries themselves will lose their taste. And such fruits cannot be stored for a long time.

Gardeners who have been dealing with the Black Prince variety for more than one year, in the reviews, are advised to make grooves between the rows of strawberries in order to water and feed the bushes through them. Planting should be watered in the evening, after sunset.

Each watering of strawberries is necessarily accompanied by loosening the soil in order to remove the crust that does not allow oxygen to the roots, and to destroy emerging weeds.

Feeding rules

Strawberry varieties can be fed with liquid and dry fertilizers. Liquid solutions are used for root and foliar feeding of bushes (the concentration is half as much). You can sprinkle dry fertilizer on the surface of the soil.

Feeding scheme

1. The first feeding is carried out in the spring. To do this, take nitrogen-containing fertilizers to build green mass. You can use ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulfate or urea. Fertilizers are used strictly according to the instructions!
2. During the period of budding and the formation of ovaries, nitrogen fertilizing cannot be carried out, you can lose the crop. At this time, plants need phosphorus. It is not bad to water strawberry plantings with a solution of wood ash, which contains all the micro and macro elements necessary for the growth, development and ripening of fruits.
3. The third time they feed strawberries of the Black Prince variety when the berries ripen with complex mineral fertilizer. Organics can use green herb infusion.

Harvest harvested…

When the last berry is harvested, plantings need to be prepared for winter:

1. First cut out the old leaves, remove the mulch.
2. The ridges are weeded, the soil is loosened.
3. Add organic fertilizers (peat, compost, humus), covering the bare root system.
4. Before the onset of frost, strawberries are covered with a layer of earth to ensure reliable wintering. Part of the Black Prince bushes can be transplanted into large flower pots to have a fresh berry in winter.
5. If the temperature in the region is below -20 degrees, the beds with strawberries need to be thoroughly covered.

Reviews of gardeners