YIELD COMPONENTS AND FRUIT QUALITY OF FLORICANE FRUITING RASPBERRY CULTIVARS GROWN IN SERBIA

Six floricane fruiting raspberry cultivars (‘Willamette’, ‘Meeker’, ‘Malahat’, ‘Tulameen’, ‘Chilliwack’ and ‘Glen Ample’) grown at the Experimental Station “Radmilovac”, a collective raspberry orchard of the Faculty of Agriculture, Belgrade University were harvested in the period of 2008-2009. All cultivars were evaluated for their standard parameters of productivity (number of fruiting laterals and inflorescences per cane, number of fruits per cane, and both yield per cane and per meter of hedgerow), fruit quality (fruit weight, index of fruit shape, number of drupelets per fruit), and nutritional value (soluble solids content, sugars content, titratable acidity and vitamin C content). The results from this study showed that the earliest ripening time was observed in ‘Malahat’ (June 5), whereas ‘Glen Ample’ was the latest (June 15). ‘Chilliwack’ expressed significantly higher values of all yield components, including the highest yields per cane and meter of hedgerow (1.2 kg and 7.2 kg, respectively). The average fruit size of ‘Glen Ample’ was significantly higher (4.7 g) than those of the other cultivars tested. ‘Willamette’ and ‘Chilliwack’ had the highest contents of soluble solids (11.7%) and also a very high content of vitamin C was found in ‘Chilliwack’ (52.3 mg/100 g).