North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["Mark Lee" <markl@nytec.com>]

Title: Re: [NAFEX] fairfax strawberries

Lon,

If I had a runner that was a foot long, how many cutting could I get out of that?  My strawberries send out runners that naturally root about every 1 foot.  It would be great to snip off those runners into smaller pieces and get more of my less vigorous varieties through a mist bench.

-Mark Lee, Seattle

-----Original Message-----
From: nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:nafex-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org]On Behalf Of Lon J. Rombough
Sent: Monday, January 12, 2004 8:54 AM
To: North American Fruit Explorers
Subject: Re: [NAFEX] fairfax strawberries

If you do get plants from the NCGR, may I make a suggestion?  I worked there for a while, and while I can't swear the process hasn't changed, the most common way they usually sent material was to root runners from the potted collection held in a screen house.  Potted plants don't usually produce huge numbers of runners, so you aren't going to get many plants.  Rather than plant them straight out in the ground, I'd suggest potting up some and try to grow them with some sort of protection from insects.  The aforementioned screen house is covered with extremely fine screen, mesh about half the size of regular window screens (about like cheese cloth) to prevent entry by aphids and other insects that might spread virus.  You might want to create a cage like that in which to increase the plants and maintain some clean stock for future use.  
   Incidently, the runners were usually cut off the plants and put in a mist bench to root.  It usually took only a week or so before they could be potted up.  This was a lot faster than layering them the old way.
-Lon Rombough

To be honest, it's easy and not easy.  If the accession is at Corvallis (which strawberries are) it's fairly easy.  

First see if its available and where
To search the Nat'l Germplasm Repository goto
http://www.ars-grin.gov/npgs/searchgrin.html
 <click on Accession Area Queries>
 In the text search field type 'Fairfax' (no quotes) and submit

The third result is:
3 NPGS Accession: PI 551479 - Fragaria x ananassa -- rank: 1000
PI 551479 Fragaria x ananassa Rozier ROSACEAE Cultivar name: Fairfax. Maintained by the Natl. Germplasm Repository - Corvallis. NPGS ... vitro. Part of core subset. Accession names and identifiers Fairfax Type: Cultivar. Comment: named after Fairfax, Virginia = Black, Black Hornet, Cummerbund, Grandview Black Type ...
http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/acchtml.pl?1446451 - 2957 bytes -

It's at Corvallis.
<Click Back twice on your browser Select Collections from the Menu>
<Click on Corvallis on the Map>
<Click on Repository Home Page>
<Click on Request Germplasm>
<Click on Germplasm Order Form>

Enter information from your earlier search and your personal information (so they can mail it to you) and click submit.

Good luck!!!!