strawberry plants flowers not forming, rootbound? transplant

[babalu]

I have my second year strawberry plants in containers, flowers since 2 or more weeks, fruit not forming, transplanted one container this morning to discover its pretty root bound, had to really tear to get them apart, I have lots of room in the strawberry ground patch, not sure if I should leave the plants in the containers (could possibly remove them and add an inch of dirt to the bottom of the pots or if it would be better to tear them apart and put them in the ground, maybe would shock them too much, they have lots of flowers......advice please.....

[JONA]

Strawberry plants in open ground are planted from 8-18 inches apart according to how dense you want them. Pot planted ..they still need that sort of room to allow the plants and their roots to increase in size.
But.....it will be difficult to move them if they are in flower. The plant may well survive, but the fruit will not.
So if you have to move them, pull them apart, remove the fruit trusses, Re-plant and with a bit of luck they will fruit up again in a few weeks.
If they are carrying a heavy leaf covour then cut some of the older leaf off to give the roots a chance.
P

[babalu]

thank you jona., well maybe best to transplant them then, also, I only picked a few flowers off this spring (black centered blossoms from frost damage)., so do you think it would in any case be advantageous to get rid of the flowers anyways for more and bigger fruit in the next fruiting?

also, dumb question probably but I have a lot of other first year strawberry plants (runners from last year), they are growing some leaf and the odd bud that flowers, I have been picking them off and assume I need to continue picking them off till the plant is larger, is that right? and then I can let them flower and produce fruit.. but my question is if I can pick the buds off or do I need to wait until those buds flower, also if I can pick the buds off can I pick off the whole stem which has the multiple buds on them?

[JONA]

On newly planted or very weak plants it pays to remove the first flush completely to give the crown a chance to build some strength. Remove the buds as soon as they are obvious. Saves the plant energy.
Just pick off damaged or frosted flowers on good trusses. This helps keep disease at bay.

[applestar]

I take the new runners they are growing off of the new ones too.

[babalu]

well I picked hundreds of buds off, do I also take off the branches or trusses that the flowers were on or do I leave those, maybe those branches will produce more flowers, or do the new flowers come from completely new branches. thanks..

[CharlieBear]

don't remove branches. It is best to transplant strawberries in very late winter or very early spring any other time is iffy at best. Since you said you already did it now, be sure to keep them well watered, but not soggy pretty much all summer. Water, nutrients are also a factor in blooming as well as how young the plants are.