A new textile used to cover strawberry plants more than tripled strawberry yields in tunnel field tests, without negatively impacting plant health. The technology could also significantly reduce water and pesticide usage in strawberry fields.
The cover, known as Plant Armor, is a carefully designed fabric that is draped over strawberry plants. The material’s three-dimensional structure prevents insects from reaching the plants beneath. But its multiple layers allow sunlight, rain and airflow to reach the plant.
Tunnel field tests found that Plant Armor increased strawberry yields by as much as 3.56 times, without negatively impacting relative humidity or light access.
“To produce fruit, plants need sunlight,” said Gabriel Olawuyi, a graduate research assistant at North Carolina State University and lead author of a paper on Plant Armor. “We expected that Plant Armor’s seemingly opaque fabric would lead to an increase in vegetative biomass at the expense of fruiting — because reduced sunlight would trigger a ‘shade-avoidance’ response, making the plant divert energy toward stem and leaf growth rather than fruit production. However, we found the fabric did not impede access to light at all, and fruit production increased significantly.”
Plant Armor also provided a consistent warming effect over the three seasons that the plant grows, which Olawuyi said helped the bushes reach the fruiting stage earlier than those without the cover.
“Plants require a certain amount of accumulated heat, calculated as ‘growing degree-days,’ to progress through developmental stages including fruiting. Our plant cover has proven to enhance these,” Olawuyi said. “The plants were in a condition whereby the warmth they need to go through each phenological stage to their production was given to them optimally, and they produced far more than the uncovered plants.”
By deterring insects, Plant Armor could also reduce the need for traditional pesticides in agriculture, Olawuyi said.
Plant Armor was created as a spinoff of efforts to make military uniforms resistant to mosquito bites and more comfortable when wearing body armor – highlighting the importance of collaborative research, said co-author R. Michael Roe, William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor at NC State.
“The path to Plant Armor started with trying to make a cloth to go on a soldier’s chest to make body armor more comfortable,” said Roe. “Then, through trial and error, we arrive at a product which could triple the output of strawberry farms here in North Carolina.
“We couldn’t have predicted that when we started. Without all these people here doing research and following the science, we wouldn’t have arrived at this product.”
The paper, “Knitted 3-D, Porous Textile Cover to Enhance Strawberry Fruit Production and Prevent Insect Feeding,” is published in the journal, Agriculture. Co-authors include James Clothier, Matthew Bertone, Grayson Cave, Reuben Garshong, Andre West, Loganathan Ponnusamy and Clyde Sorenson of NC State University.
This project was supported by a grant from the North Carolina Agricultural Foundation (grant number AG00463770). The work was also supported by the Research Capacity Fund (HATCH), project award no. 02853, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. The Plant Armor Gen 2 fabric studied in this paper was patented by North Carolina State University (US Patent No. 11,582,968 B2; 21 February 2023) and is licensed for commercial development by the University. This work was a collaborative project between the NC State College of Natural Resources, Wilson College of Textiles and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
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Note to editors : An abstract follows.
“Knitted 3-D, Porous Textile Cover to Enhance Strawberry Fruit Production and Prevent Insect Feeding”
DOI: 10.3390/agriculture16192084
Authors: Gabriel Olawuyi, James Clothier, Matthew Bertone, Grayson Cave, Reuben Garshong, Andre West, Loganathan Ponnusamy, Clyde Sorenson and R. Michael Roe of NC State University.
Published Sept. 24, 2026 in Agriculture
Abstract:
Plant covers offer a potential non-chemical strategy to reduce insect herbivory and protect plants from weather extremes. The first 3-D spacer fabric constructed as a crop cover in a tunnel field application in previous research from our laboratory increased cabbage vegetative growth 2.93-fold and was resistant to insect penetration. Whether this use will increase fruit production was not studied. Tunnel field studies were conducted here with strawberries since they grow over three seasons (Fall to Spring) and single-layer textiles are used as a cover to protect flowers and fruit from freezing. Covered strawberry plants yielded a 3.56-fold increase in harvestable fruits with the number and weight of fruit significantly higher than in uncovered plants. No differences in vegetative plant biomass were found. The 3-D spacer fabric did not elicit a shade avoidance response. Covering consistently increased temperature, but relative humidity was not affected between the covered and uncovered field plots. The fabric, although porous to air and water, demonstrated absolute aphid exclusion in lab bioassays. In preliminary studies, rhizosphere bacterial colony-forming units did not differ significantly between covered and uncovered plots. On-farm testing is now needed to examine the utility of this new textile for a variety of crop plants in different geographical locations.
Agriculture
Experimental study
Not applicable
How a new textile fabric could triple production in strawberry plants
24-Sep-2026
G.B.O., J.C., M.A.B., G.L.C., R.A.G., L.P., and C.E.S. declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. The PA Gen 2 fabric studied in this paper was patented by North Carolina State University (US Patent No. 11,582,968 B2; 21 February 2023) with A.J.W. and R.M.R. among others as inventors and is licensed for commercial development by the University.