Abstract
Influence of salt on the germination of S1 seeds from six cultivars and one advanced breeding clone of Fragaria xananassa (Duch.) and two openly pollinated cultivars of F. vesca (L.) were compared. Seeds were in vitro vernalized and then germinated on control medium without salt and on test medium supplemented with 100 mM of NaCl. The best salt tolerance was observed in progenies of two older cultivars, ‘Silver Jubilee’ and ‘Purpuratka’ (1.1 and 1.7% reduction of germination, respectively, observed after 8 weeks). S1 progeny of ‘Dukat’ showed a small degree of salt sensitivity (4.6% reduction). The most sensitive plants were progenies of clone no. 1386 (29.4% reduction) and ‘Selva’ (34.3%). Two F. vesca cultivars performed similarly to more salt-sensitive progenies of F. xananassa cultivars under salt stress conditions. A 17% reduction in ‘Rügen’ seed germination and a 34.3% reduction in ‘Baron von Solemacher’ seed germination resulted from 100 mM of NaCl.
In our opinion, differences in cultivar response to salinity can be used for improvement of strawberry salt tolerance. Although tested cultivars of F. vesca did not show any advantage over F. xananassa cultivars, we do not entirely exclude this species as a donor of salt resistance genes due to polygenic character of the trait and the wide range of the cultivars and ecotypes that have not yet been evaluated.