Post-harvest characterization of strawberry hybrids obtained from the crossing between commercial cultivars

Abstract The lack of programs to improve the strawberry crop in Brazil has led to a growing increase in the use of seedlings imported from Chile, which leads to a certain dependence of imported material on the part of the producers and increases the production even more, since the producers have. This proves even more the need for the development of cultivars adapted to the local conditions of cultivation. In this sense, the aim was to evaluate the post-harvest of fruits of 15 hybrids of strawberry obtained from the cross between commercial cultivars, in order to select the materials with chemical quality superior to the cultivars most planted in Brazil. The contents of soluble solids, titratable acidity, ratio, vitamin C, anthocyanins and phenol were evaluated. The characterization of strawberry hybrids indicated that the RVFS 13-07, RVFS 13-24, RVCS 13-07, RVCS 13-10 and RVCA 13-08 materials stood out in post-harvest evaluations, with higher levels of functional compounds (vitamin C, anthocyanins and phenolics) and higher values of quality parameters (soluble solids, titratable acidity and ratio), important characteristics for the in natura consumption or for use by the industry. These hybrids were shown to be promising to continue the crop breeding program by demonstrating that they carried characteristics of interest for intraspecific crosses. The values obtained for the analyzed characteristics were higher than the values found in the literature for the cultivars most planted and consumed in Brazil and in the World, which demonstrates the efficiency in the selection process