Yield Components and Fruit Quality of Promising Yellow Fruit Raspberry Seedlings

Abstract

Ten selections from an open pollinated population of a yellow fruiting 'Meeker' raspberry clone were selected at the Experimental Station "Radmilovac" of the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade. Many seedlings characteristics that are important to breeders, such as yield components and fruit quality were evaluated in this study. Besides the standard 'Meeker' with red fruits, genotype 2 expressed the best yield components including the highest fruit number per fruiting laterals (13.3) and yield per cane (715.2 g). Genotype 5 exhibited the highest soluble solid content (15.3%), whereas the highest vitamin C content was recorded in the fruit of genotype 10 (51.92 mg/100 g). The analysis of variance revealed significant differences among selected genotypes for numerous properties. Cluster analyses distinguished genotypes into three distinct groups where the first one have three genotypes (1A, 5, 6C), the second one six genotypes (3, 4, 6A, 9, 10, and 17), and the third one only two genotypes ('Meeker' and 2). Despite the large differences between selected genotypes, yield per cane and yield per bush produced a clear separation between the clusters.