Assessment of Some Sweet Cherry Cultivars in Comparison with Their Genitors under the Conditions of the North-Eastern Area of Romania

Abstract

Starting with 1981, the objectives of the breeding programmes in the Research Station for Fruit Growing (RSFG) Iaşi, Romania, took into consideration the on-going improvement of the sweet cherry assortment with cultivars having fruit-bearing precocity, with great productions, self-fertile, with decreased trees’ vigour, crown compactness, resistant to anthracnose, monilia, frost and fruit’s cracking, flowering lateness, superior quality of the fruits and ripening time at the extremities of the sweet cherries’ maturation season. As a result of the breeding programmes that took place up till present at RSFG Iaşi, 28 new sweet cherry cultivars, obtained through controlled hybridization, free pollination and conservative clonal selection, were homologated during 1994-2017. The present results refer to a study led during 2015-2017, having as biological material nine sweet cherry cultivars (‘Cetăţuia’, ‘Cătălina’, ‘Golia’, ‘Bucium’, ‘Ştefan’, ‘Iaşirom’, ‘Oana’, ‘Radu’ and ‘Ludovan’) obtained through controlled hybridization. The comparision of the cultivars has been performed versus their genitors ‘Van’ (♀) and ‘Boambe de Cotnari’(♂). There have been taken observations and determinations concerning the trees’ vigour, resistance to frost and anthracnosis, the main growing and fructification phenophases, physical and chemical treats of the fruit. The highest values regarding fruit’s weight (7.5-8.9 g) have been recorded for the ‘Ludovan’, ‘Bucium’, ‘Ştefan’, ‘Iaşirom’ and ‘Golia’ cultivars, while the values of the soluble substance content have been between 15.20-19.25 °Brix, the titratable acidity has been between 0.455-0.764 g malic acid 100 mL-1 of fresh juice and the total content of polyphenols has recorded values between 97.41-574.95 mg GAE 100 mL-1 of fresh juice. The hybridization between ‘Van’ and ‘Boambe de Cotnari’ has allowed the obtaining of valuable cultivars, that got remarked by earliness (‘Cetăţuia’, ‘Cătălina’), decreased trees’ vigour (‘Ştefan’, ‘Golia’), particular quality of the fruits (‘Ludovan’, ‘Iaşirom’, ‘Golia’, ‘Bucium’, ‘Ştefan’, ‘Oana’, ‘Radu’) and resistance to diseases and frost (‘Bucium’, ‘Iaşirom’).