WEB-BASED MULTI-CRITERIA RANKING OF SWEET CHERRY CULTIVARS USING THE MARCOS METHOD

The aim of this work was to rank and select the most favorable of six sweet cherry cultivars using the web-oriented FRUITrank application, which incorporates the MARCOS (the Measurement of Alternatives and Ranking according to Compromise Solution) multi-criteria decision-making algorithm. During the ranking, 10 criteria were taken into account, one of which relates to the harvest start time, three to the physical characteristics of the fruit (including the pedicel), four to the chemical properties of the fruit, and one to the organoleptic characteristics. Alternative A3 (Kordia cultivar) was ranked as the best, the Izabela cultivar (A4) as second place, while Summit (A5) was placed at the bottom of the ranking. Considering the fact that the complexity of algorithms of various MCDM (Multi-Criteria Decision Making) methods often limits their application, based on the results obtained, it can be concluded that the mentioned and similar digital solutions solve the mentioned problem, i.e., enable wider application of MCDM techniques both in fruit production and in agriculture in general.