Fragaria vesca 'Hawaii-4' is very rare. We don/t know of anyone in the Western Hemisphere, or for that matter in the world, who offers this cultivar either as seeds or plants.

This cultivar is now being evaluated by NASA in CA as a possible candidate to produce fruit on the future Mars Mission. When they get to a point that they have information available they will provide a direct feed.

'Hawaii-4' produces white fruit and runners. It was the selection chosen by scientists to sequence the DNA code a few years ago. See Genome of the Woodland Strawberry (Fragaria vesca) paper. It is extremely rare presumably because of its use in these studies. We saved seed of this cultivar about 6 years ago when we first got a few seeds from the USDA-ARS Germplasm Facility.

Here is an update about this cultivar. We weren't sure whether this cultivar re-bloomed until now. It was reported to be day neutral but we had never observed re-blooming. Now, we can confirm that it is day neutral and not only that, but we have seen flowers and fruit on the runners. We have added some images to the gallery that include new pictures of the fruit and an image of a runner with a flower and an immature berry. This is great news.

I will add that the taste of the fruit is a bit different than some of the other white fruiting types. There is a strong hint of pineapple in the flavor. Not quite as sweet as others but a unique pleasant flavor.

Packet contains 25+ seeds.

One additional comment. Because this cultivar is a runnering type of plant rather than clumping, we believe it will be suitable for NFT hydroponic systems. Because flowers are produced on the runners, propagation can rapidly increase the number of plants that are "mature" and will fruit soon after rooting. This is a huge plus for anyone planning to grow in a "clean" environment or grow indoors year round. Sow once and you're on your way!

We have been growing this cultivar in an Earthbox. The last photo is this plant in an Earthbox. It was in our unheated garage during the winter. The photo was taken on 4/24/20. You can see that it is advanced and has fruit nearly ripe. The only downside is that the constantly moist soil has attracted fungus gnats. We have controlled them with periodic treatments of neem and Gnatrol. The yield appears to be excellent with large fruit due to the constant moisture. To increase production remove runners.

Here's a video done in the summer of 2020 of this cultivar being grown in l are going to try to create charts of germination tests to give growers an idea of what to expect. These tests are done indoors in petri dishes at around 75F with 24/7 lights to optimize germination. Under other situations germination may be more or less with a different pattern. These tests are designed to give a measure of the number of seeds that are viable, not what to expect in other scenarios.

25+ Seeds per Packet.

Germination of Current Seed Lot C
Seed Packed for 2025
Germ Month Sept 2024 Germ 62%

Here is a video we created a few years ago when we first grew this cultivar.