Yield and quality of fruits of strawberry cultivars in an organic production system

Abstract

Most works on strawberry refer to conventional production systems and in traditional regions, so there is little scientific knowledge for its cultivation in other conditions, such as in the organic production of northwestern RS, Brazil. The objective of this work was to evaluate the productive aspects and physicochemical characteristics of strawberry cultivars grown in an organic production system in the northwest of RS. The experiment was carried out at the Cerro Largo Campus of the Federal University of the Southern Frontier between June 2013 and January 2014. The experimental design was a randomized block design with six blocks composed of three experi­mental units. Each unit consisted of 20 plants arranged in four interspersed lines, with plants spaced 0.30 m apart. Three strawberry cultivars were compared: Albion, Aromas and San Andreas. Yield variables were determined by mass, number, volume of pseudofruits and production percentage of non-marketable pseudofruits. Quality was determined from soluble solids content (SS), titratable acidity (TA), SS/TA ratio and pH. The cultivars Aromas and Albion were the most adapted to the organic production system under the conditions determined in this work.