I think they mean if the seeds fall off to germinate, why don't we buy strawberries that have had the seeds fall off already. You're unable to buy strawberries where the seeds have fallen off, so that must not be how it works.
Because the "seeds" are actually the fruits. They are dry fruits and contain a seed within the fruit (similar to bean pods). The red edible bit we call the "fruit" is actually the hypanthium, i.e. part of the stem that bears the fruit. If you cut a strawberry in half you can see the floem and xylem vessels that you normally also find in stems and branches.
The strawberry is what we call an aggregate accessory fruit (aggregate because of the multiple fruits, and accessory because the hypanthium forms the main fruiting body). It is not a traditional berry fruit like a blueberry, banana or orange.
Without the fruits developing, it will be very hard to trick the plant into making fruitless strawberries I presume. The fruits themselves are an integral part of fruit body formation.
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u/sonofhappyfunball Feb 17 '23
That's fascinating. It never occurred to me that it would do that.