Quality of strawberry seedlings can determine precocity

• Published in: Australian Journal of Crop Science Vol. 12; no. 1; pp. 81 - 86
• Main Authors: Costa, Rosiani Castoldi da, Calvete, Eunice Oliveira, DeNardi, Fabiola Stockmans, Pedersen, Ana Cláudia, Chiomento, José Luís Trevizan, Trentin, Nicolas dos Santos
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lismore, N.S.W Southern Cross Publishers 01.01.2018
• Subjects: Ananas; Multivariate analysis; Quality; Seedlings; Strawberries; Varieties
• ISSN: 1835-2693; 1835-2707
• DOI: 10.21475/ajcs.18.12.01.pne710

The development of day-neutral (DN) strawberry cultivars and their relationship with the quality of strawberry seedlings are important for the identification of precocity, ie. early flowering and fruiting. This study aimed to test whether the variability between morphoagronomic DN strawberry cultivars is associated with precocity. The treatments were four cultivars of strawberry (Albion, Aromas, Portola and San Andreas), and three plant crown diameters (ØB ˂ 8 mm, ØA between 8.1 and 12 mm and ØA+ ˃ 12 mm). The design was completely randomized with five replications under split plot scheme. The plants were grown in plastic containers filled with commercial substrate. The analyzed variables were the phenological stages, thermal sum accumulated (TSa) and phyllochron. The phenological data were submitted to multivariate analysis. The phyllochron (°C day leaf-1) was estimated as the inverse angular coefficient of linear regression. Aromas ØB and Portola ØA were the most divergent. Aromas and San Andreas ØA+ were earlier maturity with phyllochron of 89.28 and 85.47ºC, respectively. Phenological stage 71 demonstrated larger relative contribution for separation of the groups according to the crown diameter. The quality of seedlings for DN cultivars is determined by the crown diameter (˃8.1 mm)