GENETIC VARIABILITY FOR SOME METRIC TRAITS IN STRAWBERRY (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.)

Field studies were conducted in Uttar Pradesh, India, to determine the genetic variation in various strawberry genotypes. Runners of the 16 genotypes, i.e. Pusa Sweet (S-5), Larsan, Red Coat, Himalayan Scarlet (S-1), Katrain Sweet, Sea Scape, Etna, Sweet Charlie, Dana, Torrey, Fern, Addie, Selva, Phenomenal, Chandler and Pajaro, were kept for 2 days in the shade for hardening before transplanting in well prepared beds under field conditions. The plant to plant and row to row spacing were maintained at 30 × 30 cm, respectively. Observations were recorded on the height of plant, spread of the plant, number of leaves per plant, number of flowers per plant, number of fruits per plant, fruit yield per plant, length of fruit, fruit diameter, average fruit weight, total soluble solids (TSS) and titrable acidity. The analysis of variance and variability for different quantitative characters (heritability and expected genetic advance) were calculated. The analysis of variance for the various characters of strawberry parental lines shows that the mean sum of square due to the treatment was highly significant for all the characters. The phenotypic coefficient of variation was higher than their respective genotypic coefficient of variation for all the traits studied