Harvest Season and Some Fruit Quality Characteristics of Strawberry under Protected and Open Field Conditions

Abstract

In this study, earliness, harvest season and several quality characteristics of some short day (SD) (‘Camarosa, ‘Benicia’, ‘Rubygem’, ‘Festival’, ‘Fortuna’, ‘Amiga’) and day-neutral (DN) (‘Monterey’, ‘Albion’, ‘San Andreas’, ‘Sweet Ann’) strawberry cultivars were evaluated in plastic greenhouse and open field conditions in Samsun, Black Sea Region, Turkey. Frigo plants were planted on 7-8 July 2014 in both growing conditions. The experiment was carried out in June 2014-September 2015. Fruit harvest started on 1-24 April for the cultivars in a greenhouse. ‘Monterey’, ‘Albion’, ‘San Andreas’, ‘Benicia’, ‘Festival’, ‘Fortuna’ were the earliest, ‘Sweet Ann’ was the latest. Fruit harvest was on 6-20 May for the cultivars in open field. ‘Fortuna’ and ‘Benicia’ were the earliest; ‘Sweet Ann’ was the latest. Harvest season proceeded until early September except for ‘Benicia’ in the greenhouse. The harvest season was 119-153 days. ‘Albion’, ‘Monterey’, ‘San Andreas’ ‘Fortuna’ and ‘Festival’ had the longest harvest period with 153 days. Harvest season extended into autumn with the DN cultivars and lasted until October 5 in open field. The harvest season was 103-147 days. The DN cultivars such as ‘Albion’ (147 days), ‘San Andreas’ (141 days) and ‘Sweet Ann’ (133 days) had the longest harvest period. Marketable yield was the highest in ‘Fortuna’ (766.5 g plant-1) in the greenhouse. ‘Monterey’ (963.1 g plant-1) followed by ‘Sweet Ann’ and ‘Albion’ had high marketable fruit yield in open field. The misshapen fruit percentage was the highest in ‘Sweet Ann’ followed by ‘Rubygem’, ‘Camarosa’ and ‘San Andreas’ in the greenhouse and ‘Camarosa’ and ‘Rubygem’ in open field. Thus, ‘Camarosa’ and ‘Rubygem’ consistently had a high misshapen fruit percentage in both growing conditions. The damaged fruit was quite a few ranging from 5.1 to 26.9 g plant-1 in the greenhouse; the highest in ‘Sweet Ann’ (288.0 g plant-1) and ranged from 22.0 to 288.0 g plant-1 in open field. © 2019 International Society for Horticultural Science. All rights reserved.