EVALUATION OF NEW STRAWBERRY CULTIVARS FOR IRAN

To study evaluate new strawberry cultivars, two field trials were conducted on 14 cultivars of strawberry (‘Ventana’, ‘Diamante’, ‘Karcynberg’, ‘Classica’, ‘Camarosa’, ‘Fresno’, ‘Gaviota’, ‘Pajaro’, ‘Paros’, ‘Missionary’, ‘Marak’, ‘Selva’, ‘Queen Elisa’ and ‘Kurdistan’) in a randomized complete block design with three replicates in two different regions in the 2007-2011 period. Morpho-physiological and phenological traits such as: total leaves, number of crowns, number of runners, total number of fruits, total yield, number of inflorescences/plant, petiole length, leaf area, chlorophyll content, initial runnering date, number of inflorescences/crown, inflorescence length, blooming date, flowering period, first fruits ripening, fruiting period, , fruit volume, fruit weight, total soluble solids (TSS), titratable acidity (TA) and anthocyanins were evaluated. Compound variance analysis of data showed a significant difference (P≤0.01) between cultivars for all evaluated traits. Different years did not show significant difference (P≤0.05) in total leaves/plant, petiole length, initial runnering date, number of crowns, blooming date, TA and anthocyanins content, but showed significant differences in other evaluated traits. The highest yield was obtained from ‘Queen Elisa’ (953.7 g/plant) and the lowest from ‘Gaviota’ (100.9 g/plant). Significant and positive correlations (P≤0.01) between yield and total leaves/plant, petiole length, number of crowns/plant, number of inflorescences/plant, total fruits, fruit size and fruit weight were observed.