Assessment of variation of morphometric parameters of red currant berries and fruit brushs in the Krasnoyarsk Forest-steppe

The aim of the work is to evaluate the morphometric parameters of berries and brushes, berry weight in red currant varieties bred by VNIISPK in the forest-steppe zone of Krasnoyarsk Krai in order to identify the best genotypes according to the studied traits. The objects of research are the red currant varieties Asya, Dana and Bayana, created in VNIISPK; control – Krasnaya Andreychenko - the most common variety in the region. The studies were carried out in 2022–2023 at the Garden Center of the Agrarian University, LLC. The weather conditions of the growing seasons were characterized as warm and dry. The air temperature exceeded the climatic norm in 2022 by 0.3 °C, in 2023 – by 1.4 °C; The amount of precipitation in 2022 was 75.7 % of the norm, in 2023 – 70.8 %. The precipitation deficit was balanced by compensatory irrigation of crop plantings. It was found that in all the studied varieties, the length of the fruit cluster is within one gradation of the assessment scale (6–8 cm) – a short cluster. At the same time, in the Dana and Bayana varieties, the cluster size significantly exceeds the parameters of the control variety by 9.8 and 21.3 %, respectively. In the Asya and Bayana varieties, the number of berries in a cluster is 1.5 times greater compared to the control variety. The variability of the “number of berries in a cluster” trait varies from medium to significant values. In terms of average berry weight, the studied varieties did not have statistically significant differences. A strong direct correlation was noted between the number of berries in a cluster and its length (r = 0.89) and between the berry diameter and its height (r = 0.874).