Quality assessment of strawberry cultivars grown in western Serbia

The large heterogeneity of strawberry cultivars used in production plantings in the Republic of Serbia necessitates the need for testing of newly introduced cultivars that offer both high yields and high sensory and nutritive properties. To identify and compare the differences in the fruit quality, four economically important (‘Clery’, ‘Alba’, ‘Joly’ and ‘Senga Sengana’), and two promising (‘Garda’ and ‘Leatitia’) June-bearing strawberry cultivars were picked during three harvests (beginning, middle and end) in 2017 in the region of western Serbia. Strawberries were grown in double rows on beds covered with black polyethylene mulch. The physical (fruit weight, dimensions, firmness) and chemical properties (soluble solids (SS), total (TS) and invert sugars (IS), sucrose (SUC), titrable acids (TA), pH, sweetness index (TS/TA)) and nutritive values (total phenols (TPC) and total antioxidative capacity (TAC)) of the fruits were analysed. Significantly higher fruit weight, dimensions, firmness and content of SUC were recorded in the cultivar ‘Alba’, while the cultivar ‘Leatitia’ showed promising results in terms of fruit weight, firmness and SS and TS. The high content of TS and IS (8.9 and 8.1%) as well as the low content of TA (0.8%) were registered in the samples of ‘Clery’, with greatest TS/TA ratio in this cultivar (10.9). A high sweetness index was also observed in the cultivars ‘Joly’ and ‘Leatitia’ (8.6 and 8.5). These cultivars had a significantly higher content of TPC (461.7 and 415.4 mg GA eq 100^‑1 g FW), which was manifested through high TAC (29.8 and 30.5 mg AA eq 100^‑1 g FW) compared to other tested cultivars. The comparative study of fruit quality suggests that ‘Leatitia’ can be recommended for further promotion and expansion in strawberry growing regions of Serbia. Also, the cultivar ‘Joly’ can be recommended as a complementary cultivar with ‘Leatitia’ in order to expand the production cycle.