GrowingHQ

Cambridge Favourite

The long-standing British mid-season strawberry: dependable rather than outstanding, and forgiving of indifferent conditions. Still the safe choice for a first bed.

A cultivar of Strawberry. Everything on this page is about the cultivar; how to grow the species is on the plant page, and how big the tree gets is on the rootstock page.

Names and origin

Origin
Cambridge, England, mid 20th century

Pollination

What this cultivar needs before it will set a crop.

Self-fertility
Self-fertile
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Strawberry — pollination

Checked 2026-08-13

Partner
No partner needed
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Strawberry — pollination

Checked 2026-08-13

Ploidy
diploid
source

Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence

  • NIAB — National Institute of Agricultural Botany: Cultivar ploidy records

Checked 2026-08-13

Partners needed
none

Partners for Cambridge Favourite, from the 4 strawberry cultivars GrowingHQ holds

Computed by the pollination engine from the flowering groups, ploidy and recorded pairings on each record — not a hand-written list. The scope is exactly what the heading says: these are the answers that exist in this catalogue, not the answers that exist.

No partner is required

Cambridge Favourite sets a crop on its own pollen. The table below is still computed, because a compatible neighbour does no harm and a grower planting two trees may want to know which pairs work.

No compatible partner in this catalogue

That is a statement about GrowingHQ’s coverage rather than about the cultivar. A nursery list will contain compatible cultivars this catalogue does not hold — the pollination mechanisms page explains how to work one out.

3 further cultivars return no verdict, because a flowering group or an incompatibility group is not recorded on one side. The engine reports that rather than assuming a value: Honeoye, Mara des Bois, Symphony.

The fruit

Season
Mid-season
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Strawberry cultivars — season

Checked 2026-08-13

Use
Eating, Preserving
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Strawberry cultivars — use

Checked 2026-08-13

Keeping
Eat within days
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Strawberry cultivars — storage

Checked 2026-08-13

The plant

Vigour
More vigorous than average
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Strawberry cultivars — vigour

Checked 2026-08-13

Habit
Spreading
source

Horticultural consensusmoderate confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Strawberry cultivars — habit

Checked 2026-08-13

Cropping
Crops regularly
source

Sourced guidancehigh confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Strawberry cultivars — cropping

Checked 2026-08-13

What it is prone to

Cultivar behaviour, not a diagnosis. Every level here is relative to other cultivars of the same species.

ProblemThis cultivarWhat that means
Grey mouldSome resistance
source

Sourced guidancemoderate confidence

  • Royal Horticultural Society: Cultivar disease susceptibility

Checked 2026-08-13

Less affected than average, but not reliably free of it.

Cultivar record reviewed 2026-08-13.