KEY POINTS:
They may be the taste of summer but new research shows a harsh winter is actually the key to the perfect strawberry.
And Ingrid Ennis, part of one of the country's few strawberry agronomy research teams, expects this year's crop to be a good one.
New Zealand produces good strawberries - our biggest berryfruit crop, worth around $20 million a year, she said - distinctive for their dark red colour, firm flesh and a strong flavour.
The Unitec School of Natural Sciences horticulture programme director and two other researchers spent four years looking at how to get strawberry plants to grow a lot of large fruit.
Some trials were done at the nation's largest strawberry garden in Mangere, South Auckland. Sites in Katikati and Ohakune were also used.
Findings, just published in the New Zealand Journal of Crop and Horticultural Science, showed strawberry plants left out in the cold before flowering produced more strawberries and bigger fruit.
Plants that started life in a cold nursery produced an extra 155g of fruit on average than those raised in warm conditions.
Ms Ennis said that while the trials were for commercial growers, the findings also helped hobbyists.
"Gardeners can ask their garden centre to supply plants from cold areas," she said. "It's also important that they do their planting early - April or May."
The long hours of number crunching had a tasty payoff.
"I ate a lot of strawberries and I never got sick of them," she said. "They're just yummy."
Berry good
* 1065g of strawberries on average from plants raised in a warm nursery
* 1220g of strawberries on average from plants raised in a cold nursery
