IDENTIFYING TARGET SUPPLEMENTAL LIGHT AND CARBON DIOXIDE ENRICHMENT SCHEMES FOR STRAWBERRY PRODUCTION IN CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENTS
Strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) is a fruiting crop valued for its beautiful red flesh, sweet flavor, and complex aromatic profiles. With almost 100% of fresh market strawberry fruit grown in the United States originating from just two states (California and Florida), there is interest in the application of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) for supplying local markets with fresh strawberries during fall, winter and spring months. The increasing value of strawberries over time combined with seasonal depression in supply during winter months open up the possibility of profitable off-season strawberry production in light limited regions such as the northeastern United States where fresh fruit must be shipped in from upwards of 3,000 miles away. The objective of this work was threefold. First, a strawberry-specific mathematical equation for the biomass and photosynthetic yield of strawberry plants was developed under 16 combinations of daily light integral (DLI) and CO2. Second, a strawberry-specific mathematical equation was developed from supporting literature and empirically tested on the response of fruit yield in a greenhouse environment for 13 weeks. Third, three common lighting environments (a light deficient greenhouse, a greenhouse with supplemental high pressure sodium (HPS) and a greenhouse with supplemental light emitting diode (LED)) were tested on the response of fruit yield over 22 weeks.