Produção e qualidade de frutas de diferentes cultivares de morangueiro em sistema de produção de base ecológica

Abstract

The strawberry is produced and appreciated in various regions of the world, being the kind of small fruits of greatest economic expression. The farms involved in strawberries production are for the most part, family. Much of this strawberry production is still performed in a conventional manner causing the fruit to receive heavy loads of pesticides, resulting in fruit with high levels of residues, as shown by the reports of the National Residue Analysis of Pesticides in Food ANVISA each year. In this context, the production of strawberry in ecological production system is an alternative to reduce the use of pesticides in the crop, producing healthier food for consumers and less aggressive to the farmer and nature, ensuring their income and enhancing agricultural crops that is based on the labor of family farming. Thus, the study aimed to evaluate the performance of cultivars of strawberry in ecological production system analyzing characteristics of fruit yield, quality of fruit and disease incidence. The experiments were conducted in 2008 in the Estação Experimental Cascata - Embrapa Clima Temperado (Pelotas/RS), one studying seven strawberry cultivars in this management, and other studying the disease incidence in two strawberry cultivars. Were analyzed the distribution of production during the production cycle, number of fruits per plant, average weight of fruits, total yield of fruits per plant and per area and percentage non-marketable production, and evaluation of post-harvest soluble solids (SS), acidity (AT), pH, ascorbic acid, coloring of the skin and firmness fruit cultivars Camarosa, Aromas, Camino Real, Ventana, Albion, Diamante and Festival in the ecological system production. The distribution of fruit production was similar for all cultivars tested, while maintaining the highest yields in the months of October and December, with 'Aromas' and 'Albion' keeps the fruit production in January and February. Weekly sprays of grout alternatives plants are unnecessary, because the incidence of disease in plants is low, since it adopts a set of management practices during the production cycle, as the tunnel opens in the morning, closing the tunnel at the end of afternoon, biweekly cleaning plants to decrease the inoculum of diseases and applications of grout alternatives for management of insects and diseases, according to the monitoring of these agents in the field. From the results of the experiments we can say that all cultivars were suitable for cultivation in ecological production systems in the microregion of Pelotas, Brazil, because they show results in productivity above the average of the RS and fruit quality satisfactory. Nevertheless, it is recommended that the cultivar 'Festival', 'Camino Real' and 'Diamante', are more studied in this system to check what the requirements of management that their yields are higher.