INTERRELATIONSHIPS OF TRAITS AND PATH ANALYSIS OF YIELD IN STRAWBERRY (FRAGARIA × ANANASSA DUCH.)

A field trial was carried out on 20 cultivars of strawberry (‘Queen Elisa’, ‘Pajaro’, ‘Paros’, ‘Camarosa’, ‘Gaviota’, ‘Mrak’, ‘Selva’, ‘Classica’, ‘Missionary’, ‘Fresno’, ‘Kurdistan’, ‘Blakemore’, ‘Macdonance’, ‘Aliso’, ‘Catskill’, ‘Yalova’, ‘Chandler’, ‘Sequoia’, ‘Tennessee beauty’ and ‘Tioga’) in a RCBD with 3 replicates at the agricultural research center of Kurdistan, Iran during 2008-2010. Morphophysiological and phenological parameters consisting of total leaves of plant, petiol length, leaf area, chlorophyll content, crop production habit, number of crowns per plant, number of inflorescences per plant, number of flowers per inflorescence, inflorescence length, number of frosted flowers, blooming date, flowering period, date of first ripen fruit, fruiting period, runnering start date, number of runners per plant, number of total fruits per plant, fruit size, fruit weight, total yield per plant, TSS, titratable acidity (TA) and anthocyanin pigments content were measured. In order to determine relationships among traits, some multivariate statistical analyses were calculated. According to the combined analysis of variance for two years cultivation of strawberry cultivars, there were high and significant differences (p≤0.01) among cultivars related to all measured parameters. Positive significant correlations were among yield with total leaves, number of crowns, number of inflorescences, number of total flowers, number of total fruits and fruiting period. Based upon the path analysis of yield components, total fruit number has the highest direct effect on yield. Fruit number in conjunction with fruit weight, runnering start date, fruiting start date and fruiting period were the most important factors contributing to yield among morphological traits and were the main yield components (adjusted R-square = 0.918).