Agronomic performance of seedless table grape genotypes under tropical semiarid conditions

ABSTRACT The São Francisco Valley is the main producing region of table grape in Brazil. The objective of this work was to evaluate the agronomic performance and physicochemical characteristics of 14 seedless table grape genotypes to select those with potential to be used in commercial crops in the São Francisco Valley, Brazil, or as parents in breeding programs. The experiment was carried out over five crop seasons (2014 to 2018), in Petrolina, PE, Brazil. The treatments consisted of 14 seedless table grape genotypes. The results showed significant effects for all variables evaluated. The highest estimated yield per production cycle were found for ‘Marroo Seedless’ (26.5 t·ha-1), ‘BRS Linda’ (26.4 t·ha-1), ‘CNPUV 23’ (24.9 t·ha-1), ‘A1105’ (24.3 t·ha-1),and ‘A Dona’ (20.2 t·ha-1). Soluble solid (SS) content varied from 13.35 ºBrix (‘CNPUV 23’) to 21.63 ºBrix (‘A Dona’). The titratable acidity (TA) of the genotypes varied from 0.27 g·100 mL-1 (‘CNPUV 23’) to 0.72 g·100 mL-1 (‘Crimson Seedless’). Principal component analysis showed that the first three principal components explained 81.9% of the data variance, and grouped the best genotypes for production components and fruit chemical composition on different sides of the X-axis. These results allowed the identification of a group of seedless grape cultivars that can be used for commercial crops or as parents for controlled crossings in a local table grape breeding program.