Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Potato, Veg. and Vegetative Reproduction Dept.,
2
Veg., Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Breeding Dept, Horticulture Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Egypt.
Abstract
This study was conducted in El Tahrir South Station, Ali Mubarak Farm, Horticulture Research Institute, Agriculture Research Center.,Cairo, Egypt at the winter seasons of 2012, 2013 and 2014. The main aim was to decide upon a morphological character in the juvenile stage of strawberry to be considered as a morphological marker; i.e., Breeding Program Selectable Marker (BPSM) - for expecting the production level in the breeding programs, instead of waiting for the whole growing season; to save time, money, land and labor efforts. Thirty eight characters were evaluated using eleven strawberry cultivars, to assess the important morphological differences among them. Results showed that there were some initial vegetative growth characters at the early stages of development in the nursery during the propagation of seedlings that might be relayed upon to determine the expected yield at an early stage, without delaying to the end of whole growing season. There were some clear and significant differences among all cultivars in most of the studied traits, which might make selection effective for such complicated character of total yield. Correlation results showed significant and desirable positive correlations between total yield and each nine of the morphological traits; i.e., leaf color of the upper side (0.35**), terminal leaflet length in relation to width (0.34**), number of stolons (0.04**), flower earliness (0.19*), corolla number (0.18*), flower position in relation to foliage (0.30**), flower diameter (0.24**), calyx size in relation to corolla (0.53**) and petals arrangements (0.29**). On the other hand, some significant negative correlations were detected between total yield and each of other nine traits. Significant differences and correlation among these traits suggests that, they could be taken into account when selecting for productivity improvement in strawberry breeding programs.
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