Study on morpho-physico traits of strawberry (Fragaria ananasa Duch.) cultivars under open and protected condition

Introduction

Strawberry (Fragaria ananasa Duch.) is one of the most attractive and popular fruit all over the world due to its tantalizing aroma (Sharma and Yamdagni, 2000), eyecatching colour, nutrient compositions and worthy pharmaceutical properties (Rahman et al., 2015) [16] . It belongs to the family Rosaceae and is native of America. Strawberry basically, is a temperate fruit plant. However, in recent years, increase in area and production has been observed in tropical and subtropical plains of India (Sharma and Sharma, 2004) [21] . Strawberry consists of proteins, fats, carbohydrates and vitamins. It can also be processed for preparing jams, jellies, squashes, ice creams, canned strawberry, wine and other soft drinks (Joshi et al., 2005) [10] . It is grown in various parts of the country like Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana Rajsthan and Nilgiri hills (Chadha, 2001) [5] . Along with the other north eastern states, Assam also found to have a good results pertaining to Strawberry farming which projects future prospect for the crop in the region. But, the available information for the suitable cultivars, planting time and performance of the crop in open and protected conditions in Assam conditions are very scanty whereas, choice of cultivars is of paramount importance for successful strawberry cultivation (Asrey and Singh, 2004; Ahsan et al. 2014) [2,1] . Under these circumstances, an experiment has been undertaken to evaluate the best cultivar, date of planting and growing environment on the basis of performance of morpho-physico characters in Assam conditions.

Materials and Methods

The present experiment was carried out in the Experimental Farm, Department of Horticulture, Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat (26°44′ N and 94°10′ S with 90 m above mean sea level). The soil of the experimental plot was a sandy loam having pH of 5.06. The study was conducted with 07 (seven) treatments viz. V1-Sabrina, V2-Winter Dawn, V3-Chandler, V4-Sweet Charlie, V5-Cristal, V6-Selva, V7-Camarosa and 04 (four) planting dates viz. S1-1 st November, S2-15 th November, S3-1 st December, S4-15 th December under open field conditions and protected conditions (50% shade net condition). The experiment was laid out in Split Plot Design with three replications. Healthy tissue cultured planting materials with uniform crown and well developed root systems were planted in Hill row system in 15-20 cm raised beds with spacing of 30 cm x 60 cm. The experimental area (open condition and 50 per cent shade net house) was thoroughly ploughed followed by www.extensionjournal.com harrowing and levelling. Each treatment contained three number of replication accommodating nine plants in each plot. All the cultivation practices were carried out according to the Package of Practices, Assam Agricultural University. Five uniformly grown plants in each plot were selected to record the observations on some morpho-physico parameters like Plant height (cm), Number of leaves at flowering (no.), Leaf area (sq. cm), Number of crowns per plant (no.), Days to first flowering (days), Days from flowering to maturity of fruits (days), Number of fruits per plant (no.), Fruit weight (g), Fruit length (cm) Fruit diameter (cm), Fruit production (g/plant). Observations were recorded at proper time during the entire crop period.

Results and Discussion

The results of the experiment are detailed as below along with the supported tables. ). The varieties and time of planting did not have significant influence on plant height. The data also revealed that the effect of interaction between the varieties and planting time on plant height was found to be non-significant. However, higher plant height was recorded in S 2 (15 th of November) whereas lower plant height was recorded in S 4 (15 th of December) in both the growing conditions. It might be due to the prevalent environmental conditions which influenced the growth of strawberry cultivars. Varietal differences in plant height were also noted by Singh et al. (2008) [22] in Meghalaya which supports the present observation. Results of present investigation regarding plant height were in partial agreement with the findings of Rahman et al. (2013) [15] , Rahman (2011) [17] , and Asrey and Singh (2004) [2] . Riyaphan et al. (2005) [19] also obtained no significant variation in plant height of strawberry plants in Thailand, which ranged from 10 to 20 cm at mid-harvesting time. [8] mentioned that development of optimal leaf area is important towards photosynthesis and dry matter yield.

It was observed in the present investigation that the maximum number of leaves (14.25 and 11.50) at flowering was counted in Winter Dawn variety (V 2 ) and the minimum number of leaves (10.58 and 9.67) was produced by Camarosa variety (V 3 ) in open condition and 50 per cent shade net condition. The present finding is in conformity www.extensionjournal.com with the results of Rao and Lal (2010) [18] where they justified that the number of leaves produced by the plants of different varieties differed mainly due to the inherent characters of the varieties. In both the planting condition open and 50 per cent per cent shade net condition, highest number of leaves (13.33 and 11.52) was recorded in S 2 planting time (15 th of November). Variation with respect to number of leaves at flowering could be attributed to the fact that different cultivars may react differently to photoperiod, light, temperature, nutrient status of soil, available metabolites and their allocation to the above ground plant parts (Tanaka and Mizuta, 1974; Strik, 1988) [24,23] . This might be due to the influence of inherent genetic characters as well as environmental conditions where they were planted. The present result might be supported by the findings of Awang and Atherton (1995) [3] who remarked that shading reduced total leaf growth and observed that plants in open condition produced 26 per cent more leaves than those grown under shaded conditions. (15 th of November) planting time with 66.00 cm 2 . On the other hand in 50 per cent shade net condition the highest leaf area (64.00 cm 2 ) was found in V 2 S 2 (Winter Dawn at 15 th of November). The higher leaf area in these varieties might be due to more available metabolites and their allocation to the above ground parts of the plants through roots and genetic attributes of respective cultivars. Tanaka and Mizuta (1974) [24] also reported that variation with respect to leaf area among different cultivars could be attributed to influence of different photoperiod, temperature and soil nutrient status. [15] who reported that there was significant variation in terms of number of crowns per www.extensionjournal.com plant among different varieties of strawberry and they reported that this variation among the varieties might be due to genetic reason. In S 2 (15 th November), the number of crowns per plant was higher (3.29 and 3.05) while the minimum (1.52 and 1.81) was found in S 4 (15 th December) in both open and 50 per cent shade net condition. Increased number of crowns in open condition might be due to increased growth of the plant in the form of height and number of leaves, synthesizing more photosynthates and thereby increased crowns. Among the various treatment combinations, there was no significant difference in relation to production of crown per plant. The present finding is in conformity with the results of Kumar et al. (2015) [12] and Kher et al. (2010) [11] . [19] . Asrey and Singh (2004) [2] found a significant variation in days to flowering, which is also in consonant with the present findings. The variation in the time of flowering among strawberry cultivars might be due to the fact that different cultivars differ widely in their chilling requirement and plants of these cultivars were capable of growing and producing early flowers without a prolonged chilling period (Craig and Brown, 1977; Nicoll and Galletta, 1987) [6,14] . From the data presented in the Table 6 it is evident that significant differences were found among the varieties and planting time in relation to the flowering to maturity. Moreover, significant differences were also found in the interaction effect between varieties and planting [9] reported that days required from planting to flowering and flowering to fruit maturity were observed to have significant variation but there was no considerable variation with regard to days required from flowering to fruit set. The results are also in conformity with the findings of Dwivedi et al. (2004) [7] Sharma and Sharma (2006) [20] and Verma et al. (2022) [25] . The number of fruits per plant was significantly influenced by variety and planting time in both the planting conditions. In open condition the number of fruits per plant was highest (19.00) in Winter Dawn (V 2 S 2 ) and in 50 per cent shade net condition the number of fruits per plant was also maximum (15.67) in Winter Dawn variety at 15 th date of planting (V 2 S 2 ). The present finding had a close proximity with the findings of Awang and Atherton (1995) [3] who reported that plants grown under open condition produced more number of fruits than those under shade conditions. Insufficient sunlight and poor air circulation in the protected condition (50 per cent shade net house) might have led to the poor vegetative growth resulting in poor production of flowers and thereby lesser production of fruits. [4] observations while it was reported otherwise by Menzel (2025) [13] .

Conclusion

It may be concluded that in terms of Morpho phsico characteristics of the crop, the best results have been found in case of Variety Winter Dawn when grown both in open conditions as well as under 50 percent shade net conditions. In addition, the best time of planting has been found to be the S 2 i.e 15 th of November. Thus, the variety Winter Dawn can be considered the best variety and preferably 15 th of November should be the time of planting Strawberry runners for quality morpho physico characters under Assam conditions.

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