`OKA' STRAWBERRY

`Oka' is a mid-season, high yielding June-bearing strawberry cultivar with excellent productivity, good fruit color, flavor and firmness. It is recommended for fesh market and pick your own for the Southern Québec region. `Oka' plants are of medium size, and vigor with five to seven inflorescences per mother plant. They can tolerate winter temperatures of -25 C. Inflorescences are held erect on medium to long peduncles during bloom, and become semi-erect as fruit mature. Fruits are large, wedge shape and the calyces are semi-reflexed. Skin is moderately shiny, light red at full maturity, and the flesh is light red. Fruit flavor is similar to `Bounty', `Chambly', `Glooscap' and `Sparkle'. Fruits are medium firm to firm, and can not be decapped as easily as `Bounty', `Chambly' or `Glooscap'. More than 50% of harvested fruit have long pedicels. Percent juice loss after thawing does not differ significantly from other popular cultivars. `Oka' has outyielded `Bounty', `Redcoat' and `Sparkle' at L'Acadie and `Bounty', `Glooscap', and `Veestar' in New Brunswick. Plants can tolerate the herbicide terbacil. No symptoms of powdery mildew or leaf scorch were observed during the course of its evaluation. However some symptoms of leaf spot were observed late in the season before the onset of dormancy. Preliminary studies show that `Oka' is resistant to races 2, 4, 5, 8, 9 and 10 of P. fragariae.