Plant Armor Textile Cover Boosts Strawberry Yields Up to 3.56 Times in Field Tests
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Three-dimensional fabric designed to block insects while allowing sunlight, rain and airflow to reach strawberry plants
A newly developed textile cover used on strawberry plants increased strawberry yields by as much as 3.56 times in tunnel field tests, without negatively affecting plant health. The technology, known as Plant Armor, could also reduce water and pesticide requirements in strawberry cultivation.
Plant Armor is a specially designed fabric placed over strawberry plants. Its three-dimensional structure prevents insects from reaching the plants, while its multiple layers allow sunlight, rain and airflow to pass through. Field tests found that the cover increased strawberry yields by up to 3.56 times without negatively affecting relative humidity or light access.
Fabric increases fruit production without restricting light
Gabriel Olawuyi, a graduate research assistant at North Carolina State University (NC State) and lead author of the paper on Plant Armor, said the researchers initially expected the fabric to reduce fruit production because of its seemingly opaque appearance.
“To produce fruit, plants need sunlight,” said Gabriel Olawuyi, a graduate research assistant at North Carolina State University and lead author of a paper on Plant Armor. “We expected that Plant Armor’s seemingly opaque fabric would lead to an increase in vegetative biomass at the expense of fruiting — because reduced sunlight would trigger a ‘shade-avoidance’ response, making the plant divert energy toward stem and leaf growth rather than fruit production. However, we found the fabric did not impede access to light at all, and fruit production increased significantly.”
Plant Armor also produced a consistent warming effect across the three seasons that the plant grows. According to Olawuyi, this helped the strawberry bushes reach the fruiting stage earlier than plants grown without the cover.
Warming effect supports plant development
“Plants require a certain amount of accumulated heat, calculated as ‘growing degree-days,’ to progress through developmental stages including fruiting. Our plant cover has proven to enhance these,” Olawuyi said. “The plants were in a condition whereby the warmth they need to go through each phenological stage to their production was given to them optimally, and they produced far more than the uncovered plants.”
The fabric’s ability to deter insects could also reduce the need for traditional pesticides in agriculture, Olawuyi said.
Textile technology originated from military uniform research
Plant Armor emerged from research initially focused on developing military uniforms that could resist mosquito bites while making body armor more comfortable to wear.
R. Michael Roe, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor at NC State and co-author of the study, said the development demonstrates the role of collaborative research in taking the technology from its original application to agricultural use.
“The path to Plant Armor started with trying to make a cloth to go on a soldier’s chest to make body armor more comfortable,” said Roe. “Then, through trial and error, we arrive at a product which could triple the output of strawberry farms here in North Carolina.
“We couldn’t have predicted that when we started. Without all these people here doing research and following the science, we wouldn’t have arrived at this product.”
Research published in Agriculture
The research paper, “Knitted 3-D, Porous Textile Cover to Enhance Strawberry Fruit Production and Prevent Insect Feeding,” has been published in the journal Agriculture.
The paper’s co-authors include James Clothier, Matthew Bertone, Grayson Cave, Reuben Garshong, Andre West, Loganathan Ponnusamy and Clyde Sorenson of NC State University.
The project was supported by a grant from the North Carolina Agricultural Foundation (grant number AG00463770). The work also received support from the Research Capacity Fund (HATCH), project award no. 02853, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
The Plant Armor Gen 2 fabric examined in the paper was patented by North Carolina State University under US Patent No. 11,582,968 B2; 21 February 2023, and is licensed by the University for commercial development.
The project was a collaboration between the NC State College of Natural Resources, Wilson College of Textiles and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.