Yield and quality of highbush blueberry fruit grown in western Serbia Leposavic Aleksandar1,*, Mitrovic Olga1, Popovic Branko1, Jevremovic Darko1, Koricanac Aleksandra1, Dr Durovic agan2, Vasic Tanja3 1Fruit Research Institute, Cacak, Kralja Petra I/9, Cacak, Republic of Serbia 2Faculty of Agronomy, University of Kragujevac, Cara Ducana 34, Cacak, Republic of Serbia 3Faculty of Agriculture, University of Niš, Kosanciceva 4, Kruševac, Republic of Serbia *Corresponding author: Aleksandar Leposavic, Fruit Research Institute, Cacak, Kralja Petra I/9, Cacak, Republic of Serbia, e-mail: aleksandarl@ftn.kg.ac.rs, +381- 641301305
Online published on 13 July, 2021. Abstract The three-year study conducted in agro-ecological conditions of Western Serbia examined the yield and chemical properties of fruits of cultivars ’Duke’, ‘Reka’, ‘Nui’ and ‘Ozarkblu’, compared to the standard cultivar ‘Bluecrop’. The obtained results indicate that the highest yield was reached by the cultivar ‘Reka’, whilst the lowest one was recorded in ‘Nui’. The highest content of soluble solids and total sugars was found in the fruits of ‘Ozarkblu’, whereas the lowest values of these parameters were registered in the fruits of ‘Nui’ cultivar. The ‘Ozarkblu’ cultivar had a significantly higher content of total acids in comparison with all examined cultivars. lthough ‘Nui’ contained the lowest concentration of total acids, its fruits had the lowest pH value, which significantly differed from the standard cultivar. Fruits of all examined cultivars were highly rated during sensory evaluation. Nevertheless, they had a high content of anthocyanins. Top Keywords Highbush blueberry, Fruit quality, Chemical properties, Anthocyanins, Sensory evaluation. Top |