Sources of strawberry resistance to late blight leathery rot for the Middle Urals

Abstract

The results of the study of strawberry hybrids for further breeding in the period of mass spread of diseases contributing to the shortage of berry products - gray and late blight leathery rot of berries - are presented. The studies were carried out in a field experiment at the Sverdlovsk Horticultural Breeding Station on the collection of live plants in the open ground in 2018-2021. The objects of the study are eight elite hybrids of medium and late maturity, originating from the families Solovushka x Totem, Solovushka x Dukat, Solovushka x Marmolada, Amulet x Marmolada. The check varieties are Geyser and Borovitskaya. The hybrids were studied in accordance with the generally accepted methods for the complex of economically valuable characters and the degree of infestation by the fungal disease. In the conditions of the Urals, gray rot is observed almost annually, and the late blight on berries - in some years. In the years favorable for the development of the late blight, yield losses in the varieties that are not resistant to the disease of medium and medium maturity dates can be significant. In the Middle Urals, the disease is also observed on the late varieties of strawberries. It was found that resistance to late blight leathery rot is controlled polygenetically through the additive effect of several genes and does not depend on the races of the pathogen. Since there is no immunity to this disease in strawberries, work was carried out with the use of resistant varieties isolated when studied in the field. As a result of the research the resistant (with yield loss up to 10%) medium-maturing hybrids 2-45-10 and 2-54-11 were identified, which will be involved in the breeding process for the trait of resistance to late blight leathery rot.