Vegetative Performance of Two Cultivars and Four Hybrids of Pineapple in Côte d’Ivoire

Since the early 2000s, pineapple from Côte d’Ivoire has suffered a discount in its marketing due to the heterogeneity of the quality of its fruit and the arrival of MD2 on the international market. In order to help pineapple from Côte d'Ivoire once again win back the international market, Ananas comosus hybrids with an early natural coloring have been developed at the CNRA. The agronomic performances of these hybrids were tested at the research station of Anguédédou. Vegetative characteristics such as plant fresh mass, stem fresh and dry mass, number of leaves generated and leaf D fresh mass of these hybrids H1, H2, H3 and H4 were compared to those of cultivars Smooth Cayenne and MD2 at 2, 4 and 6 months. The results obtained showed no statistically significant difference in plant mass between hybrid H4 (2675 g) and cultivars MD2 (2645 g) and Smooth Cayenne (2763 g) after 6 months of planting. The fresh and dry mass of the stems of these three varieties were also statistically identical. Hybrid H4 leaf D fresh mass was very low (55 g) at six months of planting compared to the two cultivars (73 g each). Hybrids H2 and H3 at this same period gave leaf masses of over 80 g. Regarding the characteristics assessed, hybrids H4 and H3 had much more conformity with cultivars Smooth Cayenne and MD2.