Over 60% Serbian soils are heavy, shallow and acidic, especially in west part of this country. Basically, Serbian fruit production is mainly represented in these conditions which are not favorable for intensive fruit growing. However, repair of these soils is a long and very expensive process. Regarding to this, one of the real ways to overcome this problem faster and cheaper is to grow tolerant fruit genotypes on adequate rootstock in order to sustainable and economically justified production. Therefore, from 2008 to 2015, we investigated behavior of eight sweet cherry cultivars on Mazzard rootstock on heavy and acidic soil, i.e. their tree vigor, productivity and fruit quality attributes under high density planting system (1,250 tree ha‒1). Results showed that ‘New Star’ generally had the highest tree vigor, yield per tree and hectare, fruit thickness, sphericity, flesh rate and ripening index values. ‘Sunburst’ had the lowest tree vigor alongside with ‘Stark Hardy Giant’ (‘SHG’), and the highest cumulative yield and yield efficiency. ‘Summit’ had the highest fruit width and the poorest yield per tree, cumulative yield and yield efficiency, whereas ‘Lapins’ had the lowest fruit weight and all three fruit dimensions. The highest fruit weight and fruit width was found in ‘June Early’, and soluble solids content (SSC) and titratable acidity (TA) in ‘Hedelfinger’. The lowest SSC was observed in ‘June Early’ and TA in ‘Stark Hardy Giant’. The best financial result was shown by ‘New Star’ and the poorest by ‘Summit’.

acidic soil, fruit quality, gross profit, Mazzard, sweet cherry

Published by University of Zagreb, Faculty of Agriculture, Zagreb, CROATIA
Sponsored by Ministry Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia