Abstract
Until recently, strawberry cultivation was exclusively performed in soil using conventional cultivation methods, which resulted in many environmental and phytosanitary problems. Currently, soilless culture is the production method advocated for environmental reasons because it greatly reduces the use of chemical pesticide and fungicide inputs. This study assessed the yield and quality of fruits from strawberry cultivars grown in two systems (soil and substrate) in a greenhouse. The experiment was performed from September 2010 to January 2011 in the University of Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul State. Treatments (cultivars x culture systems) were arranged in a random block design with a 7 x 2 factorial arrangement. Evaluation included number, total and commercial fresh weight of fruits per plant, transversal diameter, total titratable acidity (TTA), total soluble solids (TSS), TSS/TTA ratio and the pH of fruits. The cultivars Camarosa, Florida Festival and Portola excelled in relation to yield when grown in the soil system. In substrate culture, all cultivars had similar performance. The yield was higher in soil culture, while the quality was higher in the substrate system.
Highlights
Strawberry culture is highly important for economic and social reasons, mainly for aggregating family labor, as cultivation on small rural properties is predominant (PONCE et al, 2010)
The cultivars Camarosa, Florida Festival and Portola grown in the soil system yielded a higher fresh weight than in the substrate medium
Portola grown in soil were higher than the 38 fruits and 600.1 g plant-1 recorded by Watthier et al (2011)
Summary
Strawberry culture is highly important for economic and social reasons, mainly for aggregating family labor, as cultivation on small rural properties is predominant (PONCE et al, 2010). One of the problems related to conventional strawberry cultivation is the excessive use of pesticides. Agronomy employed, making it among the four crops with the highest rates of pesticide contamination. Several solutions have been proposed for the minimization of these problems, among which greenhouse cultivation stands out because in addition to protecting the crop from wind, hail, rain, frost and low temperatures, it reduces the prevalence of pests and diseases, providing better conditions for plant development and improving total fructification and commercial production (ANTUNES et al, 2007; CALVETE et al, 2008). Strawberry culture in the greenhouse environment, which uses primarily soil, has productivity issues due to the susceptibility of this crop to damage by soil fungi
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