Articles
New sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) cultivars for Chile
Article number
1408_13
Pages
97 – 104
Language
English
Abstract
Chile is the largest sweet cherry exporter of the Southern Hemisphere with Asia as the main export market.
However, most of the exported commercial cultivars have been obtained by foreign breeding programs.
In 2010, the “Consorcio Tecnológico de la Fruta” (Fruit Consortium), composed of the Fruit Export Association (ASOEX), several export companies and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC), established a new traditional sweet cherry breeding program in Chile.
Its main objective was to generate new sweet cherry cultivars adapted to the Chilean changing climatic conditions, long distance markets and logistic needs.
After 12 years, a wide range of parental crosses (~35,000 hybrids; 2,000 to 4,000 seedlings year-1), using different germplasm sources, have been established at two contrasting locations, Pirque in the Metropolitan Region (33°67’S, 70°58’W) and Coltauco in the O’Higgins Region (34°22’S, 70°99’W). Seedlings (hybrids) have been obtained using either manual pollination or cages with bumble bees.
Embryo rescue and seed stratification have been implemented for either using early or late parental crosses.
Currently, six generations of families have been through evaluation and selection under field conditions.
From the evaluated hybrids, a total of 80 interesting hybrids (e.g., early, or late bloom and harvest, large fruit, and high firmness) have been grafted between 2017 and 2022 to continue phenotyping under pre-commercial conditions (2nd selection hybrids). So far, 24 grafted individuals have reached full production and are being evaluated for yield, fruit quality and storage potential.
From these, four individuals show promising results to become advanced selections.
Among their main advantages are: large fruit size (>28 mm), high firmness (>80 durofel), early harvest (6 to 10 d before “Santina”, Nov) and good performance under cold storage.
However, most of the exported commercial cultivars have been obtained by foreign breeding programs.
In 2010, the “Consorcio Tecnológico de la Fruta” (Fruit Consortium), composed of the Fruit Export Association (ASOEX), several export companies and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC), established a new traditional sweet cherry breeding program in Chile.
Its main objective was to generate new sweet cherry cultivars adapted to the Chilean changing climatic conditions, long distance markets and logistic needs.
After 12 years, a wide range of parental crosses (~35,000 hybrids; 2,000 to 4,000 seedlings year-1), using different germplasm sources, have been established at two contrasting locations, Pirque in the Metropolitan Region (33°67’S, 70°58’W) and Coltauco in the O’Higgins Region (34°22’S, 70°99’W). Seedlings (hybrids) have been obtained using either manual pollination or cages with bumble bees.
Embryo rescue and seed stratification have been implemented for either using early or late parental crosses.
Currently, six generations of families have been through evaluation and selection under field conditions.
From the evaluated hybrids, a total of 80 interesting hybrids (e.g., early, or late bloom and harvest, large fruit, and high firmness) have been grafted between 2017 and 2022 to continue phenotyping under pre-commercial conditions (2nd selection hybrids). So far, 24 grafted individuals have reached full production and are being evaluated for yield, fruit quality and storage potential.
From these, four individuals show promising results to become advanced selections.
Among their main advantages are: large fruit size (>28 mm), high firmness (>80 durofel), early harvest (6 to 10 d before “Santina”, Nov) and good performance under cold storage.
Publication
Authors
M. Ayala, M. Gebauer, J.P. Zoffoli, A. Valenzuela, K. Walls
Keywords
fruit quality, firmness, size, harvest date, bloom, yield, storage, early, late, breeding
Groups involved
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