Linear Relationships Between Yield, Quality and Phenological Traits of Strawberry Cultivars

The great economic importance attributed to strawberry cultivation raises the interest in cultivars of high productivity and superior fruit quality. The quality of fruit is the most impacting factor for the strawberry marketing, but selecting genotypes that combine high production and high fruit quality has been a difficult task. The objective of this study was to determine the linear relationships between phenological, quality and production variables of strawberry aiming at identifying potential variables for indirect selection in future selection processes of strawberry genotypes. A trial was conducted in a randomized block design with two cultivars and two transplant origins, grown in four types of substrate. Fifteen variables, including phenological, productive and fruit quality-related variables were assessed. The selected variables explained 45.2 and 39.1 % for PC1 and PC2 respectively, totaling 84.3 % of the total variance of the variables in the PCA, and indicated important relationships between the variables, and a path analysis revealed success for indirect selection of total mass of fruits based on the total number of fruits (0.81413). Changes in crop management that reduces the period between planting date and full flowering may be an alternative to increase the production of strawberry and provide fruits with higher quality.