Ja. Nielsen et Ph. Lovell, Value of morphological characters for cultivar identification in strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa), NZ J CROP H, 28(2), 2000, pp. 89-96
Citations number
16
Categorie Soggetti
Agriculture/Agronomy
Journal title
NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF CROP AND HORTICULTURAL SCIENCE
Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.), like many other crops, has large nu
mbers of cultivars both in breeding programmes and in commercial production
. Problems with the accurate identification of cultivars have arisen. These
difficulties are exacerbated by the need for unequivocal identification by
vegetative characters alone when plants are clonally propagated from elite
stocks before transplanting for fruit production. Thus, accurate identific
ation at all stages of plant growth is essential if costly errors are to be
avoided. In New Zealand, the varieties are characterised solely by morphol
ogical characters. An analysis of 17 strawberry cultivars in Auckland showe
d that there is substantial intra-cultivar variability for many of the char
acters. This, when coupled with poor discrimination between cultivars for m
any of the characters, leads to difficulty in their use for identification
pur poses. Additionally, it was often found that our profile for a cultivar
differed from that in the New Zealand Plant Variety Rights (PVR) descripti
on. Furthermore, there were often differences in the rating of the morpholo
gical characters between the New Zealand PVR description and the United Sta
tes Patent for the same cultivar. However, a cluster 14 vegetative, flower,
and fruit characters could used to identify the 17 cultivars used in this
study. A significant problem of identification still remains for the plant
breeder/propagator who deals almost exclusively with vegetative plants beca
use vegetative characters alone are not sufficient for accurate identificat
ion.