Strawberry Variety Trial in Sicily.

The Sicilian strawberry area differs from other Italian strawberry areas for its high earliness with productions that start in November-December. The earliness due to the very low plant winter chilling requirement is a very important characteristic to define the variety adaptability to this environment. Through the "Liste varietali Fragola" project funded by MiPAAF, many new varieties and advanced selections are evaluated annually in Sicily. Here, at the moment, the main variety is Florida Fortuna, followed by Candonga ® Sabrosa and Naiad ® CIVL35. Florida Fortuna, released in Florida, showed to be very interesting especially for its outstanding earliness, a high yield and good fruit quality traits, but it is quite susceptible to biotic and abiotic factors that may affect the survival of plants. The study was carried out in 2011-'12 at the experimental fields located in Marsala (TP). The cultural technique adopted was the typical Sicilian one. The performance of 7 new varieties and 4 selections are here described. Three of these selections were obtained by the Sicilian breeding program - carried out by the S.Ag.A Department and coordinated by CRA-FRF. Florida Fortuna confirmed to be the earliest and productive variety. Sabrina, coming from Spain, provided the firmest fruits with the highest total soluble solid content, while the Italian Rania produced the biggest fruits. The following selections are at the final stage of evaluation and they may be released in the near future: PA 260.3 showed to be early and to produce firm and sweet medium-small fruits. PA 20, which provided the yield as Florida Fortuna, has an early ripening and its fruits are firm with an high content of total soluble solids. PA 3 and Pir 2 stood out for high firmness, sweetness and very bright red-orange fruit colour.