Abstract:
The objectives of this study were to evaluate three strawberry
cultivars for their adaptability to Khartoum State conditions as
well as to study the effect of organic fertilizers on seedlings
establishment and vegetative growth. The vegetative and
reproductive parameters of the three strawberry cultivars; Sweet
Charlie, Chandler and Selva were evaluated over two growing
seasons of 2002and 2003. In the first experiment three
strawberry cvs (Sweet Charlie, Chandler and Selva )were tested
under field condition and their vegetative and crop production
parameters were evaluated. Sweet Charlie flowered earlier (26
and 37days) while Selva was relatively a late cultivar (43 and
57days) and Chandler was intermediate cultivar (34 and
43days) for the two seasons, respectively. Chandler over
-yielded the other two cultivars giving (30 and 32g) fruits per
plant as well as the highest fruit weight (12. 9 and 15.1 g)
compared to Sweet Charlie and Selva and consequently giving
the highest yield /ha (14.6 and 24.2 ton/ha), respectively.
Chandler also recorded highest fruit juice content (44.4%).
Selva fruits were high is fiber content. The three cultivars
resulted in comparable number of crowns per plant, shoot /root
ratio, total soluble solids and fruit pH. Cultivar Chandler
suffered more from spider mites damage. Fruits of Sweet
Charlie were more firm and with better flavour scoring 7 and 9,
respectively. But Selva scored the best fruit texture and
appearance, 8 and 6.5, respectively. In the second experiment
seedlings of the cv sweet Charlie were grown on the different
growing media(Goureira ,chicken and mixed compost) to
evaluate the effect of the media and their growth was evaluated.
Mixed compost containing 1:1sand:silt plus chicken manure (19
m3/ha) and farm yard manure ( 28 m3/ha ) proved to be the best
planting media for establishment of strawberry plantlets
compared to chicken compost (19m3/ha) and pure sand and silt.
The highest number of leaves (18.3), number of runners (15.3
and 17.7) and shoot length (16.7and 25.3) was obtained under
mixed compost media. Roots were longer under soil media
lacking organic fertilizers. The three soil media resulted in
similar shoot /root ratio
