BACKGROUND AND AIMS Experimental crosses between the diploid woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca L.) and the octoploid garden strawberry (F. × ananassa Duch.) can lead to the formation of viable hybrids. However, the extent of such hybrid formation under natural conditions is unknown, but is of fundamental interest and importance in the light of the potential future cultivation of transgenic st...

Cell wall disassembly in softening fruits is a complex process involving the cumulative action of many families of wall-modifying proteins on interconnected polysaccharide matrices. One strategy to elucidate the in vivo substrates of specific enzymes and their relative importance and contribution to wall modification is to suppress their expression in transgenic fruit. It has been reported prev...

Cultivated strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) is one of the most important berry crops worldwide. Its wild relative, woodland strawberry (Fragaria vesca L.) is also scientifically important, since recent development of molecular tools including genetic transformation methods, genetic maps and genome sequence is making it as one of the leading perennial model plants. Environmental regulation...

In the Bogota Plateau (Bogota Savanna-Colombia), strawberry cultivation (Fragaria × ananassa Duch.) is established from 2,000 to 2,800 m a.s.l. this environment relative humidity generally greater than 70% and temperature fluctuates between 14 22°C; a favorable climate for development of fungal diseases. Gray mold (Botrytis cinerea) most important disease here fruit losses can exceed 40% produc...

Spintherophyta semiaurata (Klug) is reported for the first time damaging flowers of strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) in the municipality of São José dos Pinhais, State of Parana, Brazil.

In addition to the role of the cell wall as a physical barrier against pathogens, some of its constituents, such as pectin-derived oligogalacturonides (OGA), are essential components for elicitation of defence responses. To investigate how modifications of pectin alter defence responses, we expressed the fruit-specific Fragaria x ananassa pectin methyl esterase FaPE1 in the wild strawberry Frag...