Runners such as the creeping branches formed by strawberry and some other plants, produce little clusters of leaves at each second node from which, under favorable conditions, roots are developed and thus new plants formed.

All that is necessary to have the roots develop is to anchor the rosettes of leaves with dirt or pebbles for a few days.

Layering Strawberry Runners. For instance with strawberries, the runners can be made to root in 2 inch flowerpots plunged full depth in the strawberry bed and filled with good soil or potting soil usually give better results than those allowed to grow without this restriction because there is little or no loss of roots when the potted plants are transplanted. Runners will just be cut off between pots, and then the pots lifted. Four to 8 plants may be produced in succession by one runner.

In field propagation no such care as this is taken, the plants are allowed to root freely within the limits of the hedgerow or beds. As in all other asexual methods of propagation, runners produce the same fruit as the parent plants from which they are formed.

Rapid Strawberry Propagation. When the runners first develop terminal buds with rosettes of leaves, they are layered with only the leaves exposed. Thus they are protected from accidents and the weather and are in most favorable conditions for rooting. In about two weeks, roots will have formed and the runners extended. These extensions may be rooted similarly and the operation repeated 6 to 8 or even more times. Mother plants often develop 6 to 8 runners, so this would mean 36 to 48 plants thus far. But the first rooted layers will also develop secondary runners soon after the primary ones have struck root and the secondary runners may be treated like the primary ones. Thus the number of plants would be limited almost wholly by the season, the efforts of the propagator, and the space at available. But then the terminal buds may be used for making cuttings as soon as the rosettes have two well formed leaves, the runner being cut close to its mother plant and the cuttings placed in a propagating container. The author finds cuttings less successful the layers, the plants being less vigourous and slower to multiply. Only about 35% as many cutting plants can be made as layering plans in a given time.