Strawberries. James F Hancock
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the Chili grew vigorously only on well-drained sandy soils (Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974).
ORIGIN OF THE DESSERT STRAWBERRY, F. × ANANASSA
Unusual seedlings began to appear in Brittany and in gardens elsewhere with unique combinations of fruit and morphological characteristics. Although the origin of these seedlings was initially clouded, Duchesne (Fig. 2.4) determined in 1766 that they were hybrids of F. chiloensis × F. virginiana and he named them F. × ananassa to denote the perfume of the fruit that smelled like pineapple (Ananas). It is not clear from the literature where the first hybrids of the pineapple, or pine, strawberry appeared, but they must have arisen early in the commercial fields of Brittany, and in botanical gardens all across Europe such as the Trianon, the Royal Garden at Versailles where Duchesne studied. The first hybrid cultivars were disseminated from the Netherlands, perhaps because the Dutch were such active seed merchants and had imported early hybrids, but it is also possible that they had recognized unique types in their own gardens. The first description of a variety that matched F. × ananassa was by Philip Miller in the 1759 edition of The Gardeners Dictionary, although he was not sure of its origin (Fig. 2.5).
Fig. 2.4. The great French botanist Antoine Nicholas Duchesne, who first recognized the hybrid nature of the garden strawberry Fragaria × ananassa. (From Darrow, 1966.)
Fig. 2.5. The first European description of Fragaria × ananassa made by Philip Miller in his 1759 edition of The Gardeners Dictionary. (From Otterbacher and Skirvin, 1978.)
Duchesne referred to these early cultivars of F. × ananassa as ‘Quoimios’ in his 1771 supplement to L’Histoire Naturelle des Fraisiers (Darrow, 1966). Two were pale fruited like the Chili but were improved in other ways. One from Haarlem, the Netherlands, was a partial hermaphrodite that was best used as a pollinator because it bloomed during the same late season as the female Chili and its early developing flowers were barren. One called ‘Quoimio de Bath’ had smaller berries than the Chilean but was superior in vigour and size. Three other early varieties had much redder fruit than the Chili, including the ‘Carolina’ with cherry red fruit, ‘Quimio de Cantorbéri’, which had deep coloured flesh, and ‘Clagny Quoimio’, a scarlet-coloured type, which Duchesne thought was a backcross of F. virginiana × ‘Quoimio de Haarlem’.
BREEDING IN EUROPE FROM 1800 TO 2000
At first, only chance hybrids of F. chiloensis and F. virginiana were evaluated by horticulturalists. Steady genetic progress was made over the years but yields and fruit quality still left something to be desired. Formal strawberry breeding was initiated in England in 1817 by Thomas A. Knight (Pearl, 1928; Darrow, 1966; Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974). He was one of the first systematic breeders of any crop, and he used clones of both F. virginiana and F. chiloensis in his crosses. He produced the famous ‘Downton’ and ‘Elton’ cultivars, noted for their large fruit, vigour and hardiness. Michael Keen, a market gardener near London, also became interested in strawberry improvement at about this time and developed ‘Keen’s Imperial’, whose offspring ‘Keen’s Seedling’ (Fig. 2.6) is in the background of many modern cultivars. The berries of ‘Keen’s Seedling’ were a sensation as they were sometimes 2 in. in diameter, deep red in colour and particularly good flavoured. The plants were prolific and bore their fruit well above the ground. This variety dominated strawberry acreage for close to a century (Table 2.1) and the Royal Horticultural Society awarded this remarkable berry its silver cup in 1821.
Fig. 2.6. The strawberry ‘Keen’s Seedling’, which was a sensation in England in the late 1800s. It is in the pedigree of many modern cultivars. (From Darrow, 1966.)
Table 2.1. Dominant Fragaria × ananassa cultivars in Europe before 2000. (From Darrow, 1966; Brooks and Olmo, 1997; Hancock, 1996; David Simpson and Bruno Mezzetti, personal communications.)
Numerous excellent varieties followed the success of ‘Keen’s Seedling’ in Europe in the first half of the 18th century and were grown for decades (Darrow, 1966). Among the most elite were J. William’s ‘Pitmaston Black’, a Mr Myatt’s ‘British Queen’ (1840), J. Salter’s ‘Jucunda’ (1854) and J. Bradley’s ‘Sir Joseph Paxton’ (1862). ‘Pitmaston Black’ and ‘British Queen’ were dominant in the mid-1800s and were grown in England as late as 1914. ‘Jucunta’ was a major variety in both Europe and the USA until the 1920s and was still planted to some extent in the 1960s. ‘Sir Joseph Paxton’ was the leading variety in England until the 1930s and in France for another decade. Particularly noteworthy characteristics of these cultivars were the high flavour of the ‘Pitmaston Black’ and ‘British Queen’, the productivity, lateness, high flavour and capping ease of ‘Jucunda’, and the brilliant, glossy red colour and firmness of ‘Sir Joseph Paxton’.
Several excellent French varieties were released during the mid-1800s including J. Jamin’s ‘Vicomptesse Héricart de Thury’ (1845) and M. Lebreton’s ‘Marguerite’ (1858) (Darrow, 1966). ‘Héricart de Thury’ had excellent flavour and glossy red, firm berries that made it the most important preserve berry for 100 years. ‘Marguerite’ did not achieve the long-term status of ‘Héricart de Thury’ but was widely admired for its exceptionally large berries, said to average 15–20 g with 40–45 g primaries.
Thomas Laxton of England was the most active breeder during the late part of the 18th century and released a number of important varieties including ‘Noble’ (1884) and ‘Royal Sovereign’ (1892). These two varieties were grown on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and were popular until the middle of the 20th century. ‘Noble’ was known for its earliness, cold hardiness and disease resistance. ‘Royal Sovereign’ was popular because of its earliness, productivity, flavour, attractiveness and hardiness. The American variety ‘Sharpless’ was in the ancestry of both these cultivars.
Some of the most popular releases in the early 20th century were C. Moutot’s ‘Madame Moutot’ (France, 1910), Bottner’s ‘Deutsch Evern’ (Germany, 1902), O. Schindler’s ‘Oberschlesien’ (Germany, 1919) and Guyot of Dijon’s ‘Surprise des Halles’ (France, 1929). ‘Madame Moutot’ was popular in France and other European countries until the late 1960s due to its size and productiveness. ‘Deutsch Evern’ was the standard early variety in northern Europe for decades and was still grown to some extent in 1960 (Darrow, 1966). It was noted for its productivity and long, conical,