HortScience (Nov 2023)

‘UC Eclipse’, a Summer Plant-adapted Photoperiod-insensitive Strawberry Cultivar

  • Steven J. Knapp,
  • Glenn S. Cole,
  • Dominique D.A. Pincot,
  • Cindy M. Lòpez,
  • Omar A. Gonzalez-Benitez,
  • Randi A. Famula

DOI
https://doi.org/10.21273/HORTSCI17363-23
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 58, no. 12

Abstract

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‘UC Eclipse’, a photoperiod-insensitive cultivar of strawberry (Fragaria ×ananassa Duchesne), was developed and released by the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) College of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences for summer-plant production. The colloquial “summer-plant” designation has been adopted in California agriculture to distinguish summer- from autumn-planted production of day-neutral cultivars. The development of productive day-neutral cultivars has played a significant role in the evolution and expansion of strawberry production in California, starting with the release of an initial series of photoperiod-insensitive day-neutral cultivars in 1980 (‘Aptos’, ‘Brighton’, and ‘Hecker’) that effectively doubled the length of the harvest season, and complemented the seasonal production of photoperiod-sensitive short-day cultivars (Bringhurst and Voth 1980). The development of ‘Portola’, a “day-neutral” cultivar adapted for summer-plant production, 27 years later further widened the harvest season and greatly increased the supply of fresh strawberries in months of the year when production was historically more limited.

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