New strawberry cultivars from Italian breeding activity

Italy's public-sector strawberry breeding programs started more than 30 years ago and since 1993 have been included in the national Frutticoltura project, which is mainly funded by the Ministry for Agricultural and Forestry Policy. Their essential brief is to produce new and improved dessert cultivars that are well adapted to three broad target areas (southern regions, the Po Valley and northern mountain areas) marked by different environmental conditions and management techniques. To date, a number of commercially important cultivars, particularly for northern areas, have been released. In this paper the recent varieties 'Irma' and 'Queen Elisa' adapted to the North and 'Demetra' and 'Rubea' adapted to the South are described.