Quantitative assessment of the morphogenetic efficiency in strawberry Fragaria × ananassa Duch

A quantitative assessment of the morphogenetic capability of strawberry was performed. In the experiment, three genotypes of strawberry Fragaria × ananassa Duch. were tested, including two cultivars: ‘Plena’ and ‘Kent’, and one breeding clone no. „394‟. Morphogenetic efficiency was expressed by the mean number of microplants produced by the explant of progeny combinations F₁ in two subsequent subcultures. Progeny F₁ was obtained after crossings, which were carried out according to Griffing's method 3, with the use of the parental genotypes given above. Quantitative parameters: combining ability and the effect of reciprocal crosses estimated in the progeny F₁ allowed to assess the genetic control of the analysed feature. The high positive effect of reciprocal crosses showed that in „Plena‟ the morphogenetic capability is genetically controlled mainly by nuclear genes. On the other hand, aspects of extranuclear inheritance of the analysed trait were observed in ‘Kent’, which proved a weak explant ability of the progeny combination F₁ to produce microplants. This resulted in the high negative effect of reciprocal crosses for that cultivar