Parent selection in strawberry

In order to evaluate the potential of parent selection in strawberry, different selection experiments were performed with 20 progenies based on crosses between the maternal parents 'Elsanta' and 'Valeta' on ten paternal clones, which all have a reasonable horticultural value. It was shown that there was good agreement between selection based on progeny testing with 40 plants per half-sib family and selection based on progeny testing with 1,000 plants per half-sib family (Pearson r=0.87; Spearman r=0.54). The choice for parent selection should depend on the type of crosses that are to be made. If it concerns crosses between clones differing considerably and rapid improvement can be expected, then the best way would be to choose parents based on their phenotypic value. If, however, the horticultural level is already high, progeny testing can provide the breeder with information on the breeding value and indicate the best possible cross combinations. The coefficients of correlation between data from parents and from half-sib families were low (r<0.3) when they concerned anther quality, growth of the plant, flowering capacity, firmness and shape of fruits, and somewhat higher (r= 0.3 – 0.7) when they concerned length of inflorescence, setting of primary fruits, mildew resistance of leaves, toughness, fruit size and setting of the fruits, position of the achenes and attractiveness of the fruits.