Agriculturae Conspectus Scientificus, Vol 71, No 4 (2006)

Testing of Early Ripening Strawberry Cultivars Tolerant to Soil-Borne Pathogens as Alternative to 'Elsanta'

Andreas SPORNBERGER, Robert STEFFEK, Josef ALTENBURGER

Pages: 135-139

Summary


Soil-borne pathogens, above all Verticillium sp., cause plant loss and yield decrease in many Austrian strawberry regions. As part of a research project 13 cultivars were planted in 2005 at 11 sites on nine farms in five different Austrian regions. The aim was to test early ripening Verticillium tolerant cultivars which are winter hardy, with high yield and good fruit characteristics as alternative to the highly susceptible cultivar ‘Elsanta’. Although in 2005 climatic conditions where not favorable for wilt development, ‘Elsanta’, ‘Sonata’, ‘Dora’, ‘Eva’ and ‘Divine’ showed typical symptoms on several sites. ‘Darselect’, ‘Clery’ and ‘Queen Elisa’ were less susceptible than ‘Elsanta’. No indication of wilt on the several sites was observed on ‘Alba’ (except at one site), ‘Alice’, ‘Daroyal’, ‘Record’ and ‘Salsa’. The results of yield and fruit quality have to be interpreted carefully, because they were obtained only at one site in the year of planting. ‘Alba’, ‘Clery’ and ‘Daroyal’ started ripening two days before ‘Elsanta’; ‘Queen Elisa’ and ‘Dora’ at the same day as ‘Elsanta’ and all other cultivars started later. High yield per m2 had ‘Elsanta’, ‘Salsa’, ‘Record’ and ‘Sonata’. High average fruit weight showed ‘Salsa’, ‘Record’ and ‘Darselect’, while ‘Divine’, ‘Clery’ and ‘Queen Elisa’ had rather small fruits. Some new cultivars (e.g. ‘Eva’, ‘Queen Elisa’, ‘Alba’ and ‘Record’) had a much higher fruit firmness in comparison to ‘Elsanta’; nevertheless this was not favourable in the tasting experiment. Further examinations are planned in future.

Keywords


strawberry; cultivar; Verticillium dahliae; wilt

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