Allegro

Allegro is an early-season variety which was developed at Fresh Forward’s June-bearing breeding program. Allegro, a term in music and dance denoting a brisk tempo, lives up to its name through its fast production pace and high total yield. In terms of fruit quality, Allegro also manages to impress! It is characterised by very uniform and bright red fruits, with excellent taste. Allegro is a healthy and fast-growing plant, with good tolerance to soil diseases. Allegro has a bright future ahead, particularly in an early tunnel and open-field cultivation.

Cultivation

Allegro is an early-season June-bearer. The harvest period of Allegro is identical to that of Clery, but with a much higher total yield. Flowering starts a few days later than Clery, but this is compensated by a fast development and ripening of the fruit. Allegro has a very upright plant habit with rapidly stretching petioles, leading to a good plant volume. The plants develop into a very uniform and healthy-looking crop. Because of Allegro’s fast vegetative growth rate, it is recommended to use a restrained fertigation scheme and avoid supplying too much nitrogen. Care needs to be taken so that sufficient irrigation is supplied to the abundantly growing plants.

Allegro is highly resistant to frost damage because the flower trusses remain comfortably underneath the leaf canopy, which also eases the covering of the plants. The long flower trusses stretch rapidly and split at the tip into fairly compact clusters of 6 to 9 flowers. The flowers produce a lot of pollen and fruit set is exceptionally good, which results in a very low proportion of misshapen fruit for Allegro.

The total yield is very high; Class 1 yield of Allegro exceeds that of Clery by 20% on average in our open field trials. On average, fruit size is larger and more consistent than that of Clery. This difference is most profound in the second half of the harvest season.

Allegro produces very healthy plants with good tolerance to both Phytophthora cactorum and Verticillium as well as high resistance to powdery mildew.

Fruit Quality

The excellent fruit set of Allegro results in very uniform fruits that are of medium length and conical in shape, making Allegro very recognizable. The strawberries are a shining bright red, with uniform colouration throughout. The fruits feel firm, but are not overly hard and the fruit skin is fairly tolerant to bruising.

Allegro has excellent taste, with an average Brix value of 9° in our open-field trials. Apart from the high sugar levels, Allegro also has a very pleasant aroma. In terms of juiciness and texture, Allegro is truly exceptional and can easily beat its early-season competition!

 

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Veriety descprition PDF