Efficacy of In vitro Propagation and Crown Sizes on the Performance of Strawberry (Fragaria×ananassa Duch) cv. Festival under Field Condition

In vitro propagated and conventional runner propagated plantlets of strawberry (Fragaria×ananassa Duch) cv. ‘Festival’ were transferred to the field and the size of crown for plants derived from both sources of planting material were compared. Four sizes of the crown, i.e., < 0.5, 0.5-0.8, 0.8-1, and > 1 cm were taken from both sources of planting material. The results obtained flashed that vegetative and reproductive responses of in vitro propagated plants in the field were superior over the runner propagated plants. The upshots among the various crown sizes of the planting material revealed that the plants of crown size > 1 cm performed better in all the vegetative and reproductive parameters like number of crowns per plant, number of leaves, plant height, number of runners, plant spread, terminal leaf area, number of days to flower induction, number of flowers, number of fruits, average fruit weight and fruit size. Thus, in vitro propagated derived plants can be advocated for large scale commercial cultivation. The crown size > 1 cm can be set as a selection criterion for planting materials.