Bare rooted strawberry seedlings cv. Elsanta were grown in 13 cm pots containing Levington M2 compost
. The plants were established in a polytunnel and transferred to the glasshouse three weeks later when roots had fully developed. Plants only received natural sunlight in the glasshouse. Upon flowering (on the 5th week), the primary, secondary and tertiary flowers were tagged using different colour tags for ease of identification. The rest of the flowers were removed and plants were not allowed to develop any more flowers. Only one truss per plant (primary truss) was allowed to grow and develop fruit therefore the primary, secondary and tertiary fruit were all located on the primary truss. The experimental unit did not encompass a full crop load as a control as this would have produced an undesired dimension to this study. The aim was not to compare heavy with light loads but to measure performance under various water regime treatments. To achieve good fruit set and to ensure normal fruit development, flowers were hand pollinated at anthesis every 2 to 3 days between 10H00-12H00 h, with a soft squirrel brush.