Studies of the impact of environmental conditions and varietal features of sweet cherry on the accumulation of vitamin C in fruits by using the regression analysis method

Abstract

The accumulation of vitamin C in sweet cherry fruits depends on the variety and environmental conditions. The aim of our research was to substantiate the rate of impact of weather factors as well as of varietal features on vitamin C accumulation in sweet cherry fruits. The varieties ʹKazkaʹ and ʹZabutaʹ, ʹKordiaʹ and ʹMirazhʹ were chosen as the best ones from among 33 varieties of early, medium and late term of ripening (7.31–10.67 mg 100 g-1) according to the average content of vitamin C in sweet cherry fruits. The studies found that the environmental conditions of the research years had the largest impact on the vitamin C content in the fruits of late and early ripening varieties, and in the fruits of medium ripening variety the vitamin C amount depended on the varietal features. The practicability of forecasting of vitamin C content in sweet cherry fruits on the average indices for a group of early and late maturity varieties, but not separately for every pomological variety, has been proven. For the medium ripening variety this index can be forecasted within each pomological variety. The models of dependence of vitamins C accumulation on the impact of meteorological parameters were evaluated on the basis of the principle components analysis and the least square method.