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how many hours of light do they need?
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Need or would like? Strawberry's like about as much light as they can get in general. Some varieties are bred for cooler claimants, and most will still do fine in part shade, so generally speaking the more light the better. In Alaska they get almost 24 hours of sunlight during summer months, and Alaska is well known for producing HUGE fruits and vegetables.
I grow outside in natural sunlight but if I were growing strawberry's with artificial
lights I would want strong lighting and would have them on 18 to 20 hours (maybe 12 to 16 if they were small).
Well that would mostly depend on the variety. As I mentioned before some variety's are bred for cooler claimants but in general they like warm temperatures. If I had control of the claimant I would set it for 85 degrees, no cooler than 80 unless they were for cool claimants. They should do fine all the way up to 95 degrees and for a few days even up to say 105. Though from experience growing them in California, I would recommend the air temp be 85 to 90 degrees, with low to medium humidity, and plenty of air circulation. The
nutrient temp however should be between 68 and 72 degrees for all plants.
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what determines vegetative or flowering growth?
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This is quite simple when broken down:
Vegetative Growth/stage- refers to the leaves
Flowering Growth/stage-refers to the flowers/fruit
Now for the not so simple part because not all plants grow the same. When they say
Vegetative Growth/stage they are usually referring to plants that don't flower until near the end of there life cycle, then flower. They refer to this part as the
Flowering Growth/stage, because this type of plant is just about full grown before it start to flower. Strawberry's are what is called a continuously flowering/fruiting plant. Strawberry's actually have both stages at the same time, so they don't have a vegetative growth or a flowering growth stage but both at once. They also need the
nutrients for both stages of growth thought there entire life cycle.