Development and determination of genetic similarity of parental lines and F-1 hybrids in strawberry

Abstract

Modern cultivated strawberry is propagated vegetatively using stolons and crowns, but this clonal propagation of strawberry makes propagation labor-intensive and time-consuming, and introduces the risk of the virus and pathogen transfer from the mother plant to the nursery plant. Therefore, there has long been a need for seed-propagated strawberry cultivars. We tested the genetic similarity of seed-propagated F-1 hybrids strawberry using seven simple sequence repeat markers. We detected high (>0.90) genetic similarity among individuals of F-1 hybrids developed by crossbreeding between these inbred lines and individuals of S9 or S11 inbred lines derived from Benihoppe', Toyonoka', and Akihime', original cultivars. The genetic similarity among inbred lines increased with the advancement of selfing generations, and that of F-1 hybrids produced through hybridization between inbred lines was also very high. Although the genetic similarity among these individual of inbred lines and F-1 hybrids was very high, some variation was detected, but it did not result in morphological differences. With the advancement of selfing generations, the yield and fruit weight tended to decrease in the F-1 hybrids. To develop commercially useful seed-propagated cultivars, the effects of different cross combinations or crossing among and within selfing generations should be investigated.