Botanical and phenological analysis of wild strawberry in JAAS

To better understand the botanical and phenological characteristics of the Fragaria germplasm collection housed at the National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Nanjing, China, data from the wild strawberry accessions were collected and assessed. The plant height and the formation time of stolons, flowers and fruits were statistically analyzed. Of the 232 wild strawberry accessions preserved in a greenhouse with no additional heating, the average plant height during flowering was 12.3 cm, and it was 6.4 cm during winter. In the spring, the number of flowering accessions was 154, accounting for 72.99% of all flowering accessions. Three wild accessions had the ability to flower year-round. The number of fruiting accessions was 76, accounting for 32.8% of all accessions, among which 28.9% were red fruits and 3.9% were white fruits. There were 225 wild accessions that could be asexually propagated by stolon ramets, accounting for 97.0% of the wild accessions. During winter, the plants could be divided into four categories according to their dormancy characteristics: 1) deep dormancy, e.g., F. chinensis; 2) moderate dormancy, e.g., F. pentaphylla and F. virginiana; 3) low dormancy, e.g., F. tibetica and F. nilgerrensis; and 4) non-dormancy, e.g., F. chiloensis and F. vesca. Wild strawberry germplasm accessions have many valuable characteristics that could be applied to improve cultivated strawberries or used in theoretical research.