The duration time of phenological stages, blooming, fruit set, and maturation periods of strawberry cultivars Oso Grande, Tudla, Chandler, and Dover were evaluated. The study was carried out in a 510 m2 plastic greenhouse, in Passo Fundo- RS, Brazil, in 2003 and 2004. A completely randomized experimental design with five replicates was used in a factorial scheme (cultivars x phenological stages). In the first step of the experiment, both the dates and the duration time of phenological stages were evaluated. In the second step, the number of the days up to the blooming (50% of the area), the fruit formation (10% of the fruit higher than 2.5 cm long), and the date of beginning and end of harvesting was evaluated. The scale used for the phenological stages were : 1= beginning of the flower-bud stage; 2= beginning of petals ; 3= blooming; 4= drying and falling of petals; 5= fruit formation; 6= fruit elongation; 7= fruit receptacle with visible seeds; 8= beginning of maturation, with most of fruits having white colour; 9= mature fruits with 75 to 100% of the surface with red colour. The duration of the nine phenological stages ranged from 36.4 days for cv. Tudla to 40 days for cv. Oso Grande. Stage 4 was the longest stage (11.3 days). In all four cultivars, For cv. Dover, stage 6 was longer as stage 4. Considering the duration time between blooming and fruit set, cv. Dover, was considesed the most precocious.
Fragaria X ananassa Duch.; fruit growing; degree-days
