Germination characteristics of tweezer-harvested seeds in strawberry cultivars (Fragaria x ananassa Duch.)

In order to investigate the germination characteristics of seeds of cultivated strawberries harvested with tweezers, experiments were carried out to compare tweezer-harvested seeds and blender-harvested seeds of 'Sachinoka', 'Nyoho' and 'Asuka-ruby'. In 'Sachinoka' and 'Nyoho', the rates of germination were much higher for tweezer-harvested seeds than for blender-harvested seeds. However, germination rates of 'Asuka-ruby' seeds were less than 10% for both seed harvesting methods. The rate of germination of the blender-harvested seeds undamaged in appearance, was much lower than that of the tweezer-harvested seeds in 'Sachinoka'. Furthermore, more than 90% of out-crossed and self-pollinated seeds germinated in 'Sachinoka' compared to approximately 30% in 'Asuka-ruby'. From the results of these experiments we concluded that tweezer-harvested strawberry seeds exhibited more natural germination characteristics than blender-harvested seeds.