Enhanced Vigor in Vegetative Progeny of Micropropagated Strawberry Plants

Abstract

Abstract Micropropagated mother plants of strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duchesne) often produce more flowers and runners than their runner-propagated counterparts (4, 5), but it is not clear how long this effect lasts. Swartz et al. (5) reported that the increase in runnering of tissue culture plants did not continue after the first flush of runner production in the field, and Marcotrigiano et al. (4) showed that, within the planting year, micropropagation increased runner production in mother plants and their primary runner plants, but not in attached secondary and tertiary runner plants. However, these studies examined runner plants still attached to plants directly out of culture, rather than detached, cold-hardened plants as they are delivered to the grower. In a study where detached runner plants of unknown age were compared, planting stock from micropropagated plants of 4 of 6 cultivars had significantly higher matted row densities ( = 63%) than those derived from conventionally propagated stock (2). The goal of this study was to compare the performance of detached primary, secondary, and tertiary runner plants of micropropagated (MP) and standard (ST) mother plants grown under controlled conditions.