*2.3. Experimental Design and Statistical Analysis*

The study included two experiments. The first experiment was designed as a factorial two-way completely randomized design, with five cultivars ('Petite', 'Vivlos', 'Pegasus', 'Extazy', 'Esmeralda') and two graft combinations ('TZ148 , 'Festival'). In the second experiment, post-harvest storage was also included as a third factor in a factorial three-way completely randomized design. In both experiments, each field plot was replicated 4 times and consisted of 5 plants. Each year was analyzed separately. Data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) using SAS (SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC, USA). Means were separated with the Tukey–Kramer HSD test, provided absence of significant cultivar-by-rootstock interaction.

### **3. Results**
