Breeding of Monilinia laxa resistant sour cherry cultivars in Hungary

In the last 20 years Monilinia laxa (Aderhold & Ruhl.) Honey caused serious infections in Hungarian sour cherry orchards.
Beside cherry leaf spot (Blumeriella jaapii) the brown rot (Monilinia laxa) is the most important disease of sour cherry.
The most important Hungarian sour cherry cultivar, ‘Érdi bőtermő’, is susceptible to both diseases.
Its importance in the Hungarian sour cherry growing is high because this cultivar is grown on 4,000 ha.
During the examinations of Monilinia susceptibility of sour cherry cultivars it was discovered that the Blumeriella resistant ‘Csengődi’ cultivar had a high tolerance also against Monilinia laxa. Currently ‘Érdi bőtermő’ is used in our resistance breeding programme as mother plant and the ‘Csengődi’ cultivar as pollen donor.
The most important aims of our breeding programme are: i) the selection of hybrid seedlings resistant or tolerant to Monilinia laxa; ii) the fruit characteristics and productivity of the selected hybrids should be equal or higher than ‘Érdi bőtermő’; iii) the hybrid must be self-fertile.
As result of our breeding programme a new sour cherry candidate cultivar, ‘Érdi bíbor’, was applied for state registration in 2014.

XIV EUCARPIA Symposium on Fruit Breeding and Genetics

S. Szügyi, Z. Rozsnyay, J. Apostol, Zs. Békefi

resistance, seedling

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2017.1172.9