Abstract. The commercial value of strawberry cultivars depends mostly on the appearance of the fruit and their quality, mainly their size and sugar content. The aims of this study were to assess the morphological and quality fruits traits of eight strawberry cultivars with different genetic and ecologic origin. The highest variation among the studied varieties was recorded for fruits shape and inner cavity size, but those characters had a lower influence on fruits weight variability. For this set of genotypes, the fruits diameter has contributed more than their length to achieve their weight. Also, the sizes of the fruits are negatively correlated with the sugar content. Cultivar Elsanta’s sugar content was significantly higher than all the other varieties and was associated with elongated fruits shape of small size. The biggest fruits were observed in genotype A2, which has a flattened shape fruits with a full pulp, but characterized by lower than average sugar content. The results indicate that there is a considerable variability between the studied cultivars that can be exploited in strawberry breeding programs for quality traits.

strawberry, morphological, quality traits, variability

Presentation: oral