Check these first
- Does it recover in the morning and evening? If so, the roots are struggling to take up water.
- Is the soil bone dry, or has it stayed soggy for days?
- Check the base of the stem and the roots for galls, brown streaks, or a rotten smell.
Most likely causes
From the pests and diseases recorded for this plant, the ones whose symptoms match, most serious first. Symptoms alone rarely confirm a cause, so use the linked page to check the signs and treatment.
Anthracnose
Light brown to dark brown round lesions with sharp margins form on leaves and fruit, slightly sunken in the center. In wet weather salmon-pink slimy spore masses ooze out on the lesions.
How to identify and treat: AnthracnoseFusarium Wilt
Lower leaves wilt during the day and recover morning and evening, and this cycle repeats as the plant dies back. Cutting the stem reveals characteristic browning of the vascular tissue.
How to identify and treat: Fusarium WiltScarab Grubs
The plant wilts despite watering and growth halts abruptly. Lift the plant and there are almost no roots; dig into the soil and white C-shaped grubs appear.
How to identify and treat: Scarab GrubsOther possible causes
- Root Rot — Fine roots rot brown to blackish brown, growth stops and the lower leaves yellow. The plan…
- Bacterial Wilt — Leaves wilt while still green during the day and recover in the morning and evening; after…
- Black Rot — V-shaped yellowing spreads inward from the leaf margins and the veins darken into a black …
- Sclerotinia Rot — The crown, stem or head rots in a water-soaked way and is covered in white cottony myceliu…
- Southern Blight — The stem rots at soil level and white silky mycelium spreads over the crown and the surrou…
- Root-knot Nematode — The plant wilts in the daytime and does not recover with feeding or watering. Pull it up a…
Other symptoms on this plant
What other growers did about it
A page like this one can tell you what strawberry plant wilting is and what to try. What it cannot tell you is what actually happened to someone who had it on the same plant, at the same point in the season, and what they did next.
Gadenin is a free garden journal built around that. You photograph the plant, tag what you are seeing, and the entries line up by date for each plant you grow.
- Tag the problem and the app tells you how many other growers have logged the same thing on the same plant.
- Growers who make their records public can be followed, so you can read what they did and how it turned out.
- Next season your own entries come back at the same point in the year, so you check the plant before it starts.
Free on iPhone. Recording, tagging and reading public records cost nothing.