... growing and hybridizing all kinds of plants in zone 6b Maryland since the 1980's.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Fragaria moschata 'Profumata di Tortona'

Have had these 'Profumata di Tortona' [hexaploid] musk strawberries for twenty years and never seen a berry yet. I think I read somewhere that they need another cultivar of musk strawberry to cross-pollinate them to bear fruit. But for whatever reason this year, they've formed quite a few partially formed fruits. I'd planned on buying a plant of 'Capron' musk strawberry to see if it would do the job of furnishing pollen, but now I'm curious what happened. Did they self-pollinate? Or are these fruits/seeds the product of pollen from our vesca [diploid] or normal [octoploid] garden strawberries?
You know I'll definitely be trying to germinate these! :0)

3 comments:

  1. I haven't tasted any because they're so runty and because I want to save all the seeds for planting. But they're definitely living up to their name 'Profumata' which I'm assuming must be something like "perfumed" in Italian??? The scent is very similar to that of the vesca strawberries.

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  2. Well Ellen, you got me curious. So I found another little partially developed berry out there and tasted it... very tasty!!!

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