Screening the strawberry (Fragaria Sp.) super core collection for tolerance to iron deficiency and identification of its physilogical and morphological mechanisms

Iron deficiency is a nutritional problem that appears in both animals and plants. Irondeficiency affects half of the world?s population, as well as many in Turkey, causing serious healthproblems. Iron deficiencies in soils and plants cause significant reductions in yield and quality.A study that testing soils from many areas in Turkey revealed that 27% of the soils sampledwere deficient in iron, following the zinc. The same study estimated that 25% of the arable land inTurkey (7.5 million hectares) may be deficient in iron. There are large differences in sensitivity to Fedeficiency among crop species and also genotypes of given a speciesStrawberries are a sensitive species to Fe deficiency. Recently, there has been a significantincrease in the number of hectares in strawberry production as well as total yield in Turkey. However,because iron deficiency is a widespread problem in Turkey?s soil coupled with the fact thatstrawberries are sensitive to it result in a significant reduce in total production and berry quality.Fertilization with iron as well as other micro-elements is a possible approach to solve nutrientproblems. However, the cost to purchase and apply fertilizer reduces the net profit to the grower, andfertilizer use is not considered to be environment-friendly. As an alternative to fertilizers, use ofgenotypes that are tolerant or resistant to low levels of iron or that can better utilize the existing levelsof iron can be considered.The main objective of this research is to screen the strawberry genotypes for tolerance to irondeficiency, as has been done in many other crop species, with the ultimate goal of utilizing themefficiently in the breeding programs. At the end of the study, evaluation of selected resistant/tolerantand sensitive genotypes for physiological and morphological parameters will allow us to gainknowledge on resistance/tolerance mechanisms. The results also confirmed the importance and theirroles of the Fe availability or Fe-Reductase enzyme actit in iron deficiency chlorosis. The present studyalso identified genotypes which are resistance to iron deficiency; thus, have a potential to reducing thegrowers inputs as to iron fertilizations.