Generative and fruit quality characteristics of primocane fruiting red raspberry cultivars

Eight primocane fruiting red raspberry cultivars grown at the Experimental station “Radmilovac”, a collective raspberry orchard of the Faculty of Agriculture, Belgrade University, were harvested in 2008 and 2009. The cultivars evaluated were ‘Autumn Bliss’, ‘Lyulin’, ‘Polana’, ‘Polka’, ‘Himbo Top’, ‘Ruby’, ‘Rossana’, and ‘Heritage’. All cultivars were evaluated for their standard parameters of productivity (number of fruiting laterals and fruit per primocane, both yield per primocane and per meter of hedgerow) and fruit quality (fruit weight, number of drupelets per fruit, soluble solids content, and titratable acidity), and also of nutritional value (Total Antioxidant Capacity (TAC) and Total Phenolics (TPH)). The cultivars differed in terms of generative characteristics in both experimental years. In the 1st studied year, ‘Rossana’ expressed the lowest values of all generative characteristics, whereas ‘Heritage’ yielded much higher per primocane and meter of hedgerow (107.2 g and 4.0 kg, respectively). An increase of cropping potential in all studied cultivars was recorded in the 2nd year of the experiment. A similar trend was observed with fruit weight values, although large differences were also found among the cultivars. The highest number of drupelets per fruit as well as the largest fruit in 2009 (4.6 g) was found in ‘Polka’. ‘Polka’ also exhibited the highest level of soluble solids content in 2009 (14.4%), followed by ‘Rossana’ (14.2%). It was found that raspberry cultivars with the smallest fruit size (‘Rossana’ and ‘Autumn Bliss’) showed the highest nutritional value expressed through the highest TPH and TAC levels. However, some of the cultivars represented here may satisfy both producers’ demands and contribute to the improvement of consumers’ health.