ORIGINAL ARTICLE / ORIGINALBEITRAG https://doi.org/10.1007/s10341-023-01023-2 Applied Fruit Science Enhancing the Quality and Fruit Yield of Sweet Cherry (Prunus Avium) Cultivars by Foliar Application of Boron Muhammad Sajid 1 · Abdul Basit 2 · Syed Tanveer Shah 3 · Ayesha Khan 1 · Izhar Ullah 4 · Muhammad Bilal 1 · Muhammad Suleman Khan 1 · Waleed Khan 5 Received: 10 October 2023 / Accepted: 18 December 2023 © Der/die Autor(en), exklusiv lizenziert an Springer-Verlag GmbH Deutschland, ein Teil von Springer Nature 2024 Abstract A deficiency of boron can be observed mostly in sandy soil with a high pH level and with minimum soil organic matter. Being a significant micronutrient, its deficiency may decrease the photosynthetically active emission and absorption by leaves. It helps in the transport of photosynthetic foodstuffs from foliar parts to meristematic tissues in green parts and roots ensuring leaf, shoot, fruit, and seed formation. An experiment on sweet cherry cultivars (‘Sasha’, ‘Stella,’ and ‘Sunburst’) assigned to the main plot and boron levels (0%, 0.25%, 0.50%, 0.75%, and 1%) subjected to subplot was carried out at the Kalam Summer Station, Agriculture Research Institute, Swat, Pakistan. Among the cultivars, maximum leaf area (cm 2 ), fruit diameter, percent pulp, total soluble solids (°Brix), titratable acidity (%), and total sugars (%) with the minimum number of fruit kg –1 was recorded in sweet cherry cultivar ‘Sunburst.’ The maximum fruit set (%), and yield (kg.plant –1 ) with minimum fruit drop (%) were recorded in the sweet cherry cultivar ‘Stella.’ Regarding boron concentration, maximum leaf area (cm 2 ), fruit set (%), fruit diameter (cm), yield (kg.plant –1 ), percent pulp (%), total soluble solids (°Brix), total sugars (%) with minimum fruit drop (%), and the number of fruit kg –1 was recorded in sweet cherry cultivars sprayed with 1% of boron. However, the maximum titratable acidity (%) was recorded in control treatments. Sweet cherry cultivars ‘Sunburst’ and ‘Stella’ sprayed with 1% boron showed the best results regarding yield and quality fruits production under the agro-climatic condition of Swat Valley. Keywords Deficiency · Micronutrient · Fruit quality · Sweet cherry · Fruit drop The authors Muhammad Sajid and Abdul Basit contributed equally to the manuscript.  Abdul Basit abdulbasit97_lily@knu.ac.kr  Muhammad Suleman Khan msulemankhan25@aup.edu.pk 1 Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Crop Production Sciences, University of Agriculture Peshawar, 25120 Peshawar, Pakistan 2 Department of Horticultural Science, Kyungpook National University, 41566 Daegu, Korea (Republic of) 3 Department of Agriculture, University of Hazara, Mansehra, Pakistan 4 Department of Horticulture, Faculty of Agriculture, Ondokuz Mayis University, Samsun, Turkey 5 Laboratory of Crop Production, Department of Applied Biosciences, Kyungpook National University, Kyungpook, Korea (Republic of) Introduction Cherry (Prunus avium) is a member of the Rosaceae fam- ily and the subfamily Prunoideae. It is also a type of stone fruit that belongs to the genus Prunus and subgenus Cera- sus (Tavaud et al. 2004). In Pakistan, the total area under sweet cherry cultivation is 995 hectares with an annual pro- duction of 2314 tons. The total area under cherry cultivation in Northern areas of Pakistan is 400 hectares with an annual production of 1660 tons, commercially cultivated in Quetta, Pishin, Ziarat, Kalat, Zhob, Swat, Chitral, Mustang, Loralai Baluchistan, Gilgit, Skardu, and Hunza (Ishaq et al. 2003). Among these cultivars, farmers cultivated 63% of both lo- cal and French types of cultivars, of which only 30% are French cultivars, while the remaining 70% cultivation was local cultivars with an average production of 53kg plant –1 . The average production of sweet cherry growing farmer is 868kg of which 8.53% is consumed by the farmer at home and the remaining amount is supplied to the markets (Ah- mad et al. 2008). K