UNEMAT Tereza: Morphoagronomic Characteristics of the New Passion Fruit Cultivar for Use as Rootstock

Abstract

Brazil is the world’s largest producer of passion fruit but passion fruit productivity can still be improved. Passion fruit neck rot, a disease caused by the soil fungus, Fusarium solani, has made cultivation unfeasible. The objective of this study was to evaluate and present the main morphoagronomic characteristics of the new, collar rot-resistant hybrid passion fruit cultivar, UNEMAT Tereza, which was developed by the State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT) and is recommended for use as rootstock. The grafted, hybrid plants have oval-shaped, yellow fruits with high TSS (14.97 °Brix) and productive potential (13.46 t. ha-1) compared to control fruits, indicating that the grafting did not affect the production or quality of the fruits.