Preliminary Results of Fruit Quality of Eight Croatian Local Apple Cultivars

Th e quality of the eight local apple cultivars ('Alvanija', 'Kardinal', 'Kriara', 'Majdofi ja', 'Mukatnica', 'Slastica', 'Slatka srika' and 'Punika') was studied.Cultivar 'Kardinal' had the highest fruit mass, and the cultivar 'Slastica' had the lowest.Th ere was no signifi cant diff erence in fruit mass between the cultivars 'Kardinal' and 'Majdofi ja'.Cultivar 'Alvanija' had the highest fruit height and cultivar 'Kriara' had the smallest.Cultivar 'Kardinal' had the widest fruits, and cultivar 'Kriara' had the narrowest.Cultivar 'Alvanija' had the highest shape index, and cultivars 'Kriara' and 'Majdofi ja' had the lowest.Th e highest fi rmness had cultivars 'Majdofi ja' and 'Slastica', between which there was no statistically signifi cant diff erence.Cultivars 'Kardinal', 'Kriara' and 'Punika' had signifi cantly lower fruit fi rmness but still signifi cantly higher than cultivar 'Mukatnica'.Cultivar 'Slastica' had the highest soluble solids content, and cultivar 'Kriara' had the lowest.Cultivar 'Kriara' received signifi cantly lower panelist score for crispness, texture and juiciness than cultivar 'Majdofi ja'.Cultivars 'Kardinal' and 'Majdofi ja' received better scores for taste attributes than other cultivars.Panelist scores for fruit shape and general impression were the highest for the cultivars 'Kardinal' and 'Madofi ja'.Th ere was no signifi cant diff erence in panelist scores for fruit size between these cultivars and cultivars 'Alvanija' and 'Kriara'.It was concluded that the most promising cultivars are 'Majdofi ja' and 'Kardinal'.However, to fully evaluate their potential, comparison with other cultivars in the standard growing conditions during long-term research is needed.