UPDATE ON THE SICILIAN STRAWBERRY BREEDING PROJECT

The strawberry industry in Sicily differs from that of Italy’s other southern regions since the particularly warm winter weather results in earlier fruit ripening. Cultivar choice is thus of key importance for the success of Sicily’s strawberry industry. The old cultivar Tudla®Milsei has recently been replaced by cultivars ‘Florida Fortuna’, ‘Florida Festival’, ‘Sabrosa®Candonga’, ‘Naiad®Civl35’ and ‘Nora’ developed by both public and private breeding programs in Florida, Spain and Italy. The strawberry breeding program in Sicily started about 20 years ago in an effort to develop new cultivars well adapted to an area of very low winter chilling, with requirements featuring superior performance and fruit-quality traits. The most interesting selections to date include PA 3 and PA 260 as they combine earliness, high yield, large fruit size, sweetness and flesh firmness.