Current Situation of the Spanish Public Strawberry Breeding Program

Due to the economic and social significance of strawberry production for fresh-market in Huelva (Southwest coast of Spain), an increasing research effort is undertaken in strawberry breeding in Spain in order to give response to the producers and consumers demands. In this sense, in 2006 a new stage of the Spanish public strawberry breeding program started aiming to develop and release fresh market strawberry cultivars well-adapted to the agronomic and environmental conditions of Huelva. The new cultivars to be obtained must have a harvest calendar appropriate for the economic interest of the farmers, high yielding capacity, and high fruit quality. The resulting cultivars should also be competitive with cultivars released by other origins. Parameters related with the antioxidant capacity and adaptation to different culture techniques (soil-less culture, early planting, ...) have recently been incorporated in this program. The procedures and the new most promising selections of this program are described. In the current strawberry breeding program (CC05-024-C3-1) participate, along with the Instituto de Investigacion y Formacion Agraria y Pesquera (IFAPA), the Instituto Nacional de Investigacion y Tecnologia Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA), the Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Agrarias (IVIA) and the private companies Fresas Nuevos Materiales S.A. (FNM), Nuevas Tecnicas en Fresa S.L. (NTF) and Freshuelva Viveristas (FV).