Search

‘UC Eclipse’, a photoperiod-insensitive cultivar of strawberry (Fragaria ×ananassa Duchesne), was developed and released by the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) College of Agriculture & Environmental Sciences for summer-plant production. The colloquial “summer-plant” designation has been adopted in California agriculture to distinguish summer- from autumn-planted production of day-neutral cultivars. The development of productive day-neutral cultivars has played a significant role in the evolution and expansion of strawberry production in California, starting with the release of an initial series of photoperiod-insensitive day-neutral cultivars in 1980 (‘Aptos’, ‘Brighton’, and ‘Hecker’) that effectively doubled the length of the harvest season, and complemented the seasonal production of photoperiod-sensitive short-day cultivars (Bringhurst and Voth 1980). The development of ‘Portola’, a “day-neutral” cultivar adapted for summer-plant production, 27 years later further widened the harvest season and greatly increased the supply of fresh strawberries in months of the year when production was historically more limited.