Improvement of apricot cultivars assortment in Romania

The apricot breeding program at the Research Station for Fruit Growing Constanta (RSFG Constanta) began in 1970. The main objective of this program it has been to obtain new apricot genotypes which are well-suited to the climate and soil conditions in the southestern part of Romania, and which produce fresh consumption fruit and for processing industries, too.
The new cultivars are characterized by very early or very late ripening period.
For realized this objective many crossing and backcrossing were made using genitors from the national apricot collection, that has more than 320 apricot cultivars.
In this paper will describe the new apricot cultivars created at the RSFG Constanta and found in the official catalog of cultivars in Romania.
The mentioned apricot cultivars are the following: ‘Amiral’, ‘Augustin’, ‘Elmar’, ‘Ovidius’, ‘Ceres’. It should be noted that the introduction of the ‘Elmar’ and ‘Ovidius’ cultivars into the assortment increase the period of apricot fresh consumption up to three months.
Two of them ‘Amiral’ and ‘Augustin’ have good average yields (15.6 and 14.0 t ha^-1 respectively for a density of 625 trees ha^-1). Also, the new apricot cultivars mentioned proved to have high fruit weight, flesh firmness, very good aroma, red skin and good commercial aspect.

XVII International Symposium on Apricot Breeding and Culture

V.A. Oprita, C. Gavat, I. Caplan

Prunus armeniaca L., new cultivars, stone fruit, orchard

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2020.1290.31