I have had occasion in my travels over the past two weeks to find a good quantity of what is depicted in the two photos below: J-rooting of strawberry plants.

J-rooting of strawberry plants occurs when the root is too long for the planting hole (Photo 1 below shows how big a healthy transplant can be - lots of those this year by the way) which has been made for it and subsequently the root tips end up pointing upwards rather than down. All too frequently, these upward pointing root tips end up being outside of the hole in the open air, as depicted in Photo 2 below.

It is not difficult to understand why J rooting is not beneficial to the plant.   Root extension in plants takes place from the root tips, and having them exposed to the open air, drying out and dying does nothing to help this process along and represents a setback to the establishing plant. To be blunt, it’s a bad practice to be planting this way and shows a costly lack of attention to detail.

Transplanting is hard, back breaking work and it’s not too difficult to empathize and understand how J rooting can happen all too easily. Growers can help their planting crews along and get the roots straight down by several ways.  Already having a deep hole or slot to be placing the transplant into helps a lot. Additionally, growers can ask that nurseries trim the roots to reduce the length of root of the transplant to better the odds of everything going straight down. In field quality control on the day of planting by the person in charge also goes a long way in making sure J rooting doesn’t become a pattern in for one individual or the crew.