Current status and future prospect of strawberry production in East Asia and Southeast Asia

Strawberry is known as an adequate fruit to be grown in mild temperature with low humidity such as California in USA and the coast countries located in the Mediterranean Sea such as Egypt, Italy, Spain, Turkey and so on. In recent years, however, an increased production of strawberries has been pronounced in East and Southeast Asian countries and regions especially in China. Although strawberry production in these areas is fundamentally difficult because of rainy climate called as monsoon, the difficulty has been solved and high quality strawberry fruit has been produced by greenhouse techniques as well as by using cultivars which are suitable for the production even under such a humid climate. June-bearing strawberry cultivars which are classified as short-day plants are widely produced in East and Southeast Asian countries and regions mainly due to their high fruit quality and the tolerance to humid climate. In this respect, strawberries are widely grown in East Asian countries including China, Korea and Japan during winter to spring using greenhouses because the floral differentiation occurs under short-photoperiod and cool temperature during autumn. In Southeast Asian countries, strawberries are commonly produced in mountain areas such as Chiang Mai in Thailand, La Trinidad in the Philippine, and Cameron Highlands in Malaysia to obtain enough cool temperature for inducing the floral differentiation but these areas are often far from the cities of large-scale consumption. Therefore, fruit are often required to be picked at immature stage for long-distance transportation by trucks and this eventually results in poor fruit quality when they are sold on the markets. To resolve such a problem of long-distance transportation in Tropical Asian countries, strawberry production of suburban area has recently started using greenhouses with controlled environment system called plant factory.