324 Heat Tolerance Varies with Species, Provenance, and Accession in Fragaria

Abstract

Several components of whole-plant growth were compared among accessions of Fragaria chiloensis (FC) and F. virginiana (FV) grown at 23 and 31 °C daytime temperatures. The accessions loosely represented North American (NA) and South American (SA) provenances of FC and Kentucky (KY) and eastern Canadian (CN) provenances of FV. Differences in component values between species and by provenance and accession within species were observed at each temperature. Using the ratio of the component value at 31 °C to that at 23 °C as a basis for comparisons, whole-plant relative growth rate (RGR), leaf net assimilation rate (NAR), root RGR, and root: shoot ratio were reduced relatively more by high temperature in FC than FV, while crown RGR, leaf RGR, and leaves produced per day were not consistently affected by temperature or and did not differed significantly between species. While the SA FC exhibited higher values for nearly all components than the NA FC at both temperatures, both were affected similarly by high temperature. The CN FV exhibited somewhat greater sensitivity to high temperature than the KY FV, with significantly lower leaf NAR, crown RGR, and leaves produced per day in the former group.