Are hollow strawberries the result of hormone injections?

It’s strawberry season again. Dandong 99 strawberries, cream strawberries, Zhangji strawberries... There are so many different kinds of strawberries on the market, are you dazzled by the choices?

Every time at this time, there will be a lot of rumors about strawberries - "Our milk strawberries are grown with milk", "Hollow strawberries are grown with hormones", "Discolored strawberries are made with pigments and preservatives", etc. These make you hesitant and afraid to buy the tempting strawberries.

Don't worry, we will talk about these confusions today. Before that, we need to sort out the origins of the Strawberry family.

Strawberry flower | wikimedia.org

A match made in heaven from Europe

We need to make one thing clear: the strawberries we are familiar with today are actually a very young fruit - they were born in France in 1750.

The strawberry family is a large family, including 50 wild species and 1 cultivated species (Pineapple Strawberry). As early as the ancient Roman period, people began to collect wild strawberries for use as medicine. Note that it is medicine! Pliny's works have records of strawberries, but the strawberries people collected at that time were not the strawberries we buy on the market today, but some wild strawberries from Eurasia. Among these fruits, whether it is forest strawberries, yellow-haired strawberries or oriental strawberries, even if the flavor is rich, they are all small and pocket-sized fruits.

Fruit of the forest strawberry (Fragaria vesca) | wikimedia.org

The strawberries we buy in the market today are not simple copies of wild species, because their chromosome composition is completely different. Cultivated strawberries are all octoploids (8 sets of chromosomes per cell) after doubling their chromosome number, while wild species are almost always diploid or tetraploid.

Generally speaking, polyploid plants are larger than diploid plants, so it is not surprising that the cultivated strawberries we eat are much larger than wild ones.

Wild strawberry (left) and hybrid strawberry (right) size comparison | scientificamerican.com

What’s even more interesting is that the large-fruited pineapple strawberry we eat now is actually the fruit of a love affair that spans continents. It is the love fruit of the Virginia strawberry (F. virginiana) and the Chilean strawberry (F. chiloensis). The former comes from North America, and the latter comes from South America.

In the 16th century, the Florida strawberry was first introduced to Europe. Although this strawberry has a strong aroma, it is small in size and does not perform much better than its European cousin, so it has never stood out.

The situation changed when European colonists discovered Chilean strawberries cultivated by locals in Chile and brought them back to Europe. The original Chilean strawberries did not bear fruit at all. Later, it was discovered that only those Chilean strawberries planted together with Florida strawberries and forest strawberries could bear fruit - it turned out that Chilean strawberries are dioecious and need pollination to bear fruit.

Fruits of Virginia strawberries (top) and Chilean strawberries (bottom)

Image above: Walter Siegmund / wikimedia.org

Below: phototourismbg.com

The large-fruited pineapple strawberry combines the advantages of its two parents. It has the rich flavor of Florida strawberries and the size of Chilean strawberries. It can be said to be a "match made in heaven." As a result, humans have gained a nearly perfect fruit.

What kind of strawberry is delicious?

In the following two hundred years, horticulturists continued to select and cultivate strawberries, and strawberries have been comprehensively transformed and have a more attractive appearance. The large-fruited pineapple strawberry is also the only cultivated variety at present. As for the names of Zhangji, Hongyan, Fengxiang, etc. on the market, they are just different varieties of it. The most popular Dandong 99 strawberry this year is generally the Hongyan variety. Because Dandong City in Liaoning Province has sufficient sunshine and rainfall, it is suitable for growing strawberries, so Dandong strawberries are particularly delicious.

So when choosing, how can you buy delicious strawberries without tasting them?

There is no doubt that delicious strawberries must be sweet, fragrant and juicy. As for the softness and hardness of the flesh, that is a matter of personal preference.

Everyone wants to eat strawberries that are delicious and tasty | ensaladas.info

If you want to choose delicious strawberries, you must first choose the right variety. For example, Hongyan and Xingxiang are varieties with relatively high sweetness, while Zhangji has a stronger fragrance. As for Yanli, it really has a very beautiful coat and a relatively obvious acidity.

Secondly, the degree of maturity has a great influence on the flavor of strawberries. Except for special varieties such as cherry white, which are white even when ripe, ripe strawberries should be bright red. In addition, the temperature has a great influence on strawberries. If there is a low temperature and continuous rain, the sweetness of the strawberries will also be affected.

There are three varieties: Hongyan, Zhangji and Yingruobai | Shi Jun

Whether the strawberries are hollow or not depends on the variety and growing conditions. For example, almost all of the gorgeous strawberries are hollow, and there is even a small tongue in the hollow. In addition, excessive water and fertilizer supply during the strawberry ripening period can also cause the strawberries to become hollow.

A variety of lucky incense that can also form a hollow core | Shi Jun

By the way, using milk to water strawberries is just a gimmick. Plants cannot absorb protein and fat directly! Instead of watering with milk, it is much more practical to use some farmyard manure.

Different berries

Duchesnea indica is the fruit that looks most like strawberry. But when we were young, our parents didn't let us eat it because snakes had crawled on its surface and it would be venomous. Of course, this is not true. Duchesnea indica is edible, but it is slightly toxic, so it is not recommended to eat it as a fruit. Of course, the fruit itself is not delicious.

Duchesnea berries | Kurt Stüber / wikimedia.org

Blueberries are cousins ​​of the beautiful azalea. In a broad sense, all members of the genus Vaccinium in the Ericaceae family that have blue-purple berries can be called blueberries. The genus Vaccinium is a large family with more than 400 brothers, and they can be found in Eurasia and the Americas.

At present, the most famous cultivated blueberry species are northern highbush blueberry and rabbiteye blueberry. In fact, China's blueberry, red bean blueberry and black rice tree are all members of the blueberry family, but they have not been developed into fruits.

They are northern highbush blueberry, blueberry, and red bilberry | wikimedia.org

Cranberries are relatives of blueberries. Fresh cranberries are not very tasty, they are more suitable for making jam. The scene of harvesting cranberries is very spectacular - people put water in the fruit fields to make the fruits float, and then scoop up the fruits like fishing for ocean balls.

Harvesting cranberries | AD Makepeace Company

Raspberries and blackberries are members of the genus Rubus in the Rosaceae family. When we eat these fruits, we will find that the raspberry seeds are wrapped in the pulp. That's because the fruits of the raspberry family are small drupes, and the part we eat is their peel, not the receptacle structure like strawberries.

Blackberries and raspberries | wikimedia.org

In addition, gooseberry, also known as currant, is a member of the Ribes family. It is not a good fresh fruit. As the name suggests, its taste is unacceptable to ordinary people. It is more often used as a garnish in desserts or cocktails.

Gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa) | wikimedia.org

Of course, no matter which berry we eat, we have to thank the hard-working gardeners - it is their unremitting pursuit that gives us such sexy fruits.

Author: Shi Jun

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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