Ex vitro experiment was conducted at the greenhouse and nursery facilities of the Plant Tissue Culture
Laboratory of Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Suez Canal University during the period 2009-2012.
Strawberry ex vitro growth performance of tissue culture-derived plants from different propagation methods (meristem,
direct regeneration and callus-derived plants) were examined with standard runner-propagated mother plants based on
morphological traits and genetic analysis using RAPD. Ex vitro growth performance examination showed that leaf
morphology and serration patterns were almost similar among plants obtained from meristem, direct or callus
regeneration. Tissue culture plants have higher number of runners while standard runner plants were higher in flower
production compared with in vitro propagated plants. RAPD analysis indicated that plants of cv. 'Tudla' from the
different in vitro propagation methods were genetically stable, while in cv. 'Festival', callus-derived plants deviated
from normal genotype. The obtained results confirmed the usefulness of RAPD in determining genetic stability of
plants clonally propagated in vitro as well as detecting the somaclonal variants, which might be used further in breeding
programs.