Performance of wating-bed strawberry plants with different number of crowns in winter plantings

Abstract

Concurrently with studies about the behaviour of waiting-bed plants for winter production in Spain, we studied the influence of the number of crowns of these nursery plants and how they affect both production and fruit quality.

This study was carried out in 1995 using multicrown plants of cvs Chandler, Oso Grande, Pajaro and Vilanova, from a low elevation nursery, which were divided into 5 groups having 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 crowns. Planting occurred on December 27, 1994 in a large polyethylene tunnel. Vegetative parameters as well as production and fruit weight were measured. Production started at the begining of March.

Crown number did not affect production in ‘Oso Grande’ or in ‘Vilanova’, but in ‘Chandler’ there was a linear increase in production with crown number and in ‘Pajaro’ a quadratic effect occurred. Fruit weight decreased linearly with crown number in ‘Oso Grande’ and ‘Vilanova’, and was not affected in ‘Chandler’ or ‘Pajaro’. The number of flowers and fruits in the middle of February increased with crown number, having significant linear and quadratic effects in ‘Chandler’, ‘Pajaro’ and ‘Vilanova’, but crown number had no effect in ‘Oso Grande’.