2D representation of the plant architecture in strawberry

Abstract

The development of soilless cultivation for strawberry production is a current major socio-economic issue. This technique improves competitiveness by early planting (December) in heated greenhouses, allowing an extension of flowering and thus of fruit production. Our objective is to better understand the strategy of different cultivars to extend flowering by studying the spatiotemporal development of plant architecture. In a previous phenological study, specific flowering patterns were identified in six cultivated varieties (Labadie et al., 2019). Here, we designed a 2D visualization and an analysis approach to represent the plant architecture and its development. Our analysis approach was applied in six strawberry cultivars. Subsets of plants were dissected at successive dates during the season in order to understand the architectural development. All structures (buds, order of the axes, number of leaves on each axis, etc.) were described. Results showed architectural patterns are highly conserved in genotypes and differ in the rate of architecture formation. All genotypes had a higher number of leaves and of flowers on the axis of order 0 (main crown or primary crown). These numbers decreased sharply in axes of order 1 (axes produced by axillary meristems present on the axis of order 0) and continued to decrease in axes of orders >=2 for flowers by inflorescences. Our 2D visualization can be further used in breeding programs to evaluate cultivars.