Abstract

Runner plants raised in controlled environments under continuous light at 24 deg C to prevent inflorescence induction were placed outdoors in batches at 2-week intervals from late winter to early summer. With progressively later dates of exposure to the lengthening days and increasing temperature, inflorescence production by Cambridge Favourite rose to a peak and then declined, the peak occurring with the mid-April exposure in 1979 and the early March treatment in 1981. The latter gave more than 8 times the number of inflorescences produced by conventional runner plants. Stolon numbers were inversely related to the number of inflorescences. An unnamed seedling, 69GU76, showed maximum inflorescence production at the earliest date of exposure in mid-March 1980 and a steady decline until early June when no inflorescences were initiated. The results are discussed in relation to the daylength and temperature conditions experienced by each treatment. Peak yields of 250 and 350 g/plant were recorded from Cambridge Favourite and 69GU76, respectively, in a season extending from mid-August to mid-September.