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Several interesting attributes have been observed while working with European and Asian species of Fragaria. F. nilgerrensis has shown immunity to aphids and leaf diseases. F. iinumae produces runners that frequently have unusual tap roots. F. moschata demonstrated excellent winter hardiness in a water-logged field during an unusually long cold winter (1995–96) in southern Ontario, excellent leaf disease resistance, and high susceptibility to Botrytis. When grown in the greenhouse, F. moschata fruit taste like a concord grape. F. pentaphylla (Guelph P-1 and P-2) displayed unusually bright red-colored fruit that were uniformly wedged, firm, but lacking flavor. F. pentaphylla P-1 is extremely vigorous and immune to leaf diseases. F. nubicola and F. daltoniana are the smallest and least-vigorous plants in the Univ. of Guelph's collection, yet they appear to confer hybrid vigor to their progeny when crossed to other species. F. daltoniana's leaf has a waxy cuticle and dark green color similar to F. chiloensis. F. viridis has a spicy, cinnamon-like flavor. When F. viridis is crossed to most other diploids, powdery mildew and leaf diseases are prevalent. F. orientalis crosses easily to synthetic tetraploids, has a flavor similar to F. viridis and F. nubicola, but is extremely susceptible to viruses. Aroma is quite variable in F. vesca with the most desirable originating from Russian accessions.
Fragaria species from the center of diversity have not been integrated into octoploid commercial strawberry cultivars because of ploidy level differences. Even though traits such as disease resistance, enhanced flavor, cold hardiness, and vigor are known to exist in the diploid, tetraploid, and hexaploid species, they cannot be easily used for breeding. The synthetic octoploid method circumvented introgression difficulties by combining lower ploidy species and doubling to the octoploid level. Although easily crossed to cultivars, the use of synthetic octoploids has been minimal as it has been extremely difficult to create them. By working to improve bottlenecks of the original system, improved methodology has been developed and 170 synthetic octoploids have been produced. This represents more than a 100-fold increase in efficiency. The following factors played a major role in improving the system: wide germplasm base; use of F. vesca as a common genome; embryo rescue; 5% colchicine applied in vitro by dropper method for 24 hours followed by a quick rinse and continuous light in a 18C growth chamber. F. vesca, F. nilgerrensis, F. nubicola, F. viridis, F. orientalis, and F. moschata have been incorporated into synthetic octoploids in this study.
Interspecific crosses with Fragaria moschata (6x) have been hampered by ploidy level differences, poor seed set, and extremely poor seed germination. Modification of pollination practices, embryo rescue, and use of several genotypes has allowed over 80 synthetic tetraploids to be created from 14 cross combinations. Germplasm for the experiment consisted of eight selections of F. moschata (6x), two of F. nubicola (2x), and two of F. viridis (2x). Both 2x × 6x and 6x × 2x crosses were performed. Initially, negligible seed set occurred on F. nubicola and F. viridis when multiple flowers per truss were pollinated. When only one cross was performed per truss, with other flowers removed, seed set was greatly enhanced. F. moschata was much more tolerant of multiple crosses per truss. The crossing combination of F. moschata × F. nubicola gave the worst seed production. Other species combinations were capable of producing good seed set with noticeable differences between individual selections. When achenes were halved, only 1% appeared normal, 2% were underdeveloped or shrunken, the remainder were empty. Many of the malformed and most of the normal embryos germinated using the cut achene method. Achenes were surface-sterilized, cut in half, and placed on MS media with activated charcoal (3g·L–1), sucrose (30g·L–1), and no hormones. Germination occurred only from achenes from fully ripened fruit. Viable hybrids were obtained from 2x × 6x as well as 6x × 2x crosses. Fragaria viridis–F. moschata hybrids closely resembled F. moschata while F. nubicola–F. moschata hybrids were more intermediate in leaf morphology.
Forty-three accessions from 11 strawberry species were screened in the greenhouse for resistance to three strains of Xanthomonas fragariae Kennedy and King. Among the accessions tested, Pen-5 of Fragaria pentaphylla Losink expressed either no symptoms or a hypersensitive reaction, while accessions Pen-2 and Pen-4 developed either no symptoms or restricted water-soaked lesions. Two accessions of F. moschata Duch were characterized by reduced translucency at the inoculation site in the course of symptom development. These accessions, representing three resistance types, were classified as highly resistant, resistant, and moderately resistant, respectively, based on mean separation of disease severity ratings. The classifications proved to be consistent with the results from measurements of bacterial populations on inoculated leaves of those genotypes. The study suggests that species of F. pentaphylla and F. moschata harbour diversified sources of resistance. Resistant genotypes were not detected in F. nilgerrensis Schlect, F. daltoniana J. Gay, F. nubicola Lindl, F. gracilis Losinsk, F. iinumae Makino, F. vesca L., F. viridis Duch, or F. orientalis Losinsk.