Growth of runner plants grown in a plant factory as affected by light intensity and container volume

Transplant production in a plant factory with artificial lighting provides several benefits; (1) rapid and uniform transplant production, (2) high production rate per unit area, and (3) production of disease free transplants production. To improve the growth of runner plants when strawberry transplants are produced in a plant factory, we conducted two experiments to investigate (1) the effect of different light intensity for stock and runner plants on the growth of runner plants, and (2) the effect of different container volume for runner plants on their growth. When the stock and runner plants were grown under nine different light conditions composed of three different light intensities (100, 200, and 400 μmol·m^˗2·s^˗1 PPF) for each stock and runner plants, increasing the light intensity for stock plants promoted the growth of runner plants, however, the growth of runner plants was not enhanced by increasing the light intensity for runner plants under same light intensity condition for stock plants. We also cultivated runner plants using plug trays with four different container volumes (21, 34, 73, and 150 mL) for 20 days after placing the stock plants, and found that using plug trays with lager container volume did not enhance the growth of runner plants. These results indicate that providing optimal condition for stock plants, rather than the runner plants, is more important for increasing the growth of the runner plants and that the efficiency of strawberry transplant production in a plant factory can be improved by decreasing light intensity or container volume for runner plants.