Comparison of Five New Sweet Cherry Cultivars Bred in Romania, with their Parental Forms

Abstract

Abstract The studies were performed for four consecutive years (2016–2019) at the Fruit Growing Research Station (North-East part of Romania), using eleven sweet cherry genotypes as research material. Five of them are new cherry cultivars – ‘Cătălina’, ‘Andreiaş’, ‘Maria’, ‘George’, and ‘Margonia’ – obtained by means of controlled hybridization or open pollination, and six of them are their progenitors (‘Van’, ‘Boambe de Cotnari’, ‘Stella’, ‘Fromm’, ‘Ciliegia di Ottobre’, and the ‘HC 27/4’ hybrid). The experiment compared the traits of new cultivars with those of their progenitors. The following traits were evaluated: tree vigor, frost damage, the phenological stages, and the physical and chemical traits of the fruit. The highest values concerning the fruit's weight have been recorded for ‘Andreiaş’ (10.0 g) and ‘Maria’ (7.6 g), the content of soluble substance was between 16.6 and 19.5°Brix, the titratable acidity was between 0.413 and 0.675 mg malic acid·100 mL−1 juice, and the total content of polyphenols was recorded with values between 268.00 and 488.75 mg GAE·100 mL−1 of fresh juice. The new cultivars have mostly superior traits, especially frost damages, productivity, fruit quality, and fruit's cracking percentage compared with their parental genotypes.