STRAWBERRIES AS BALCONY FRUIT

“Balcony Gardens” are a modern trend in urban horticulture. The best strawberry types to use are everbearing and day-neutral cultivars. In this contribution, we present double white and pink flowering breeding clones. Mutations of homeotic genes are responsible for a double flowering F₁-hybrid after introgression of Fragaria virginiana with a F. ×ananassa cultivar. Cross-breeding with intergeneric cultivars bearing pink flowers resulted in pink double flowering clones bearing tasty fruit. Further, we report instabilities in flower colour of the cultivar ‘Pink Panda’ and of some clones. This can be explained by instable genes. Additionally, ‘Pink Panda’ shows flower colour changes which can be interpreted as somatic crossing over.