Help needed with strawberries..

Hi purchased strawberry plants a few months back which looked very healthy but now they tend to look dull and the leaves also limp rather than standing up straight. I think its the weather warming up and also it was infested with some serious pests a few weeks back. I had mulched it with neem leaves but had to remove the mulch because the soil was badly infested with these black flies and aphids I think. There were also a lot of white microscopic creatures moving about the soil. I treated the whole plant with soap water and tomato leaf spray diluted ofcourse. And it seemed to work.

There are still a few flies which I spray away by just splashing water on them. Is there anything else I can use to keep this plant disease free? There was also this bug that fed on the seeds and causedtheberries to be deformed. I think Ihave managed to get rid of many though I still sometimes see these creatures moving around the root area. I wonder if any of them would be feeding on the root and making the plant weak.

What can I do to restorethe color and glow of the leaves? What would be a better mulch than leaves that help the pests to hide under?

Also, why does the center of the flower (berry part once strawflower has died) become dark? Is this normal or a problem?

The last image shows what the plant looked like when it was new.

Hope I can get help. The strawberries are so juicy and sweet, I dont want to lose this plant.

I agree with you that the plants look rather unhappy, the picture showing the poor unhealthy leaves are definitely suffering from some fore of sucking insect / fly, maybe either greenfly ot red spider might.
Take a look at the underside of the leaf and look really close, there should be signs of small sucking flied, these small flies actually bread like lightning and if you have a couple of them land on a plant, within a couple of days, they have laid eggs, hatched and before you know it a weak later you have hundreds.

The way you are treating the plants is a good idea, even IF you cant get rid of every white fly, the spraying will help slow down the reproduction of the insects.

IF you can go on line to research the little white grubs you mention then knowing what they are is best way to treat them as strawberry plants have little hairs growing on the foliage making it hard to grow healthy IF constantly being wet with soap spray but again, watering the plants from wetting the soil is better than wetting the foliage at the times you need to water the plants, BUT do continue to spray every few days to get rid od the flies.

The white grubs are probable the hatched eggs from some other soil born grub and without a picture its hard to say which one it is, IF the grubs are a plenty, then maybe you will have to lift the plants out of the soil, shake off all the soil at the roots and (I would lightly wash off any remaining soil) then re-pot the plants into new soil that is known to be completely sterilised or known to be free from infestation as it could be the soil you used was actually infected by grubs before you used it.

Be careful what you use to kill (Chemical) sprays or soil washes from garden stores as you really don't want chemicals near food crops.
I know here we get tiny black flies called fruit flies IF the plants are in soil too wet from over watering HOWEVER, these little fruit flies live in the soil and will only be seen IF you brush against the plant or shake the pot, maybe the tiny white soil born grubs are the larva from these, by the way, these fruit flies don't suck the sap from the foliage as shown in picture.
Good luck Hope you can get better pictures of the sucking flies and the white grubs.
will be able to help better and maybe more folks will come in to help.
Best Regards. WeeNel.

I managed to get a picture of the black flies that I usually see around my strawberry plant. Any idea what it is.

Its very tiny and soft. You can just kill it by touching it.

To me that looks like our mosquitoes, but I doubt that is what those are. Have you check the bug files? I use bugguide.net but there are many others that are just as good if not better.


As for the plant, I doubt the sickly parts will bounce back, perhaps you should consider cutting about 1/3 of the sick looking parts down, that would allow the plant to focus it's energy on the remaining healthy bits, I'd do this about once a week or so until you have nice healthy plant stems again. Soap is absolutely the worst thing you can put on a plant, many soaps have phosphates in them, plants don't like those too much. If you are using soap make sure that it is phosphate free. I killed a plant or two doing the exact same thing myself. :-(
Good luck!