COMPARISON OF RUNNER PLANT PRODUCTION FROM MOTHER PLANTS OBTAINED BY CONVENTIONAL AND MERISTEM CULTURE METHODS

Performance of mother plants obtained from both conventional method and meristem culture were compared in terms of the number and quality of runner plants. Field trials were done in 1994, using seven strawberry cultivars/selections (Rapella, Tribute, Dorit, Dana, Spadeka, H-1 and H-2). Mother plants of some cvs were provided by the Dept. of Horticulture's nursery, the remaining mother plants were obtained by producing meristem culture plants in the tissue culture labs of the Department.

These two types of mother plants were transferred in January 1994 onto raised seedling beds about 120 cm wide, spaced 50 cm as a single row. After one year, when the plants were dormant, they were dug out, and number of runner plants, percentage of first quality runner plants and length of roots and crown diameter of the first and second quality runner plants were determined. In general, mother plants from meristem culture produced more runner plants than conventional methods. Also, for day-neutral cultivars, which are low in runner production, meristem cultured mother plants increased runner production. However, the number of runner plants produced by this way were still lower in these cvs than the other June-bearing cultivars. The percentage of first quality runners produced by both sources of mother plants ranged from 5% to 78%. These rates were due to the number of runner plants per unit area, because there was a negative correlation between quality and number of runners.

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