Evaluation of early maturity and fruit taste of pear hybrid seedlings under the conditions of the forest-steppe of the Altai Region’s Ob River area

Abstract

The research findings on pear hybrids under the conditions of the forest-steppe of the Altai Region’s Ob River area are discussed. The research goal was to evaluate early maturity and fruit taste of pear hybrid seedlings, and to select the sources of pear early maturity. The research targets were 418 pear seedlings from 5 hybrid families bred in 1998 and 1999 at M.A. Lisavenko Research Institute of Gardening for Siberia of the Federal Altai Scientific Center of Agro-Biotechnologies. The research was conducted from 2008 through 2013 in the forest-steppe of the Altai Region’s Ob River area. Conventional methods of fruit crop variety study were used. Most of the pear seedlings started fruit-bearing in 10-13 years after sowing. The most early maturing progeny was obtained in the families 10-99 (‘0-69-66 × ‘Povislaya’) and 9-99 (‘Povislaya’ × 4-6-11k) - respectively 47.2% and 44.4% of fruit-bearing seedlings on the 10th year after sowing. The maximum number of plants which started fruit-bearing (16.4-35.8%) was revealed on the 11th year after sowing. After severe winter of 2009-2010, the percentage of fruit-bearing seedlings decreased due to frost damage of the trees, especially in the family 10-99 with 59% of poor winter-hardy seedlings. The pear seedlings stared fruit-bearing at the age of 11.7 years on average. Most of the studied hybrid families had seedlings with poor (58.8-92.0%) and fair (5.1-32.2%) taste. The hybrids with good taste were revealed in the families 9-98 (7.6%), 10-99 (6.0%), 12-99 (5.1%), and 8-98 (4.5%). The variety ‘Povislaya’ was selected as a source of early maturity.