SHARMA, GIRISHGARG, SAURABH2016-11-172016-11-172013http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/handle/1/86054ABSTRACT The present investigation entitled “Variability and association studies in strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa)” was carried out for the year 2011-12 and 2012-13 in the experimental field of Department of Fruit Science, Dr Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, Nauni, Solan, Himachal Pradesh. The experiment was laid out in a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. Variability, correlation and path analysis studies in fourteen strawberry cultivars were carried out. It was observed that ‘Chandler’ outperformed all other cultivars for vegetative characters such as plant height, plant spread, number of leaves, leaf area, number of runners and petiole length. The cultivar Sweet Charlie was earliest to flower and the duration of flowering was longest in ‘Chandler’ (97.08 days). Fruit length (34.48 mm), fruit breadth (27.90 mm), number of fruits per plant (30.17) and yield per plant (370.05 g) were also found highest in ‘Chandler’ whereas average berry was recorded highest in ‘Belrubi’ (12.46 g). TSS content was highest in ‘Selva’ and titratable acidity in ‘Etna’ (0.93 %) while ‘Sweet Charlie’ had maximum (6.57 %) total sugars. Coefficients of variability were high for plant spread, leaf number per plant, number of fruits per plant and average berry weight whereas high heritability coupled with high genetic gain was observed for plant spread and number of fruits per plant. Yield per plant was positively and significantly associated with plant spread, leaf number per plant, duration of flowering, fruit length, fruit breadth, number of achenes per fruit, number of fruits per plant, average berry weight and TSS. Number of fruits per plant, average berry weight and leaf number per plant found to have high positive direct effect on yield per plant during first year of study while during 2012-13, fruit length had maximum positive direct effect on fruit yield.enThesis