Flowering abundance of strawberry depending on the number of subcultures in vitro

Some difficulties have arisen over the years with the use of micropropagated strawberry plants, or runner plants derived from them. These have included delayed fruiting and the size of individual fruits from such plants which tends to be smaller than from conventionnaly runner-propagated plants [13]. The smaller size of the fruits might come from a tendency of micropropagated strawberries to produce more flowers, particularly when originated from shoots raised after a high number of multiplication cycles [7]. The present work aimed to study the flowering abundance in relation with the number of subcultures on the multiplication medium and also correlate this flowering behaviour with other morphogenetic traits. Particular attention has been paid to rooting because flowering and rooting are known to be antagonistic developmental processes [3, 8, 9].