Articles
FRUIT BREEDING AT THE FEDERAL RESEARCH CENTRE FOR HORTICULTURAL PLANT BREEDING, AHRENSBURG/HOLSTEIN
Thus a survey is given on fruit breeding at the Federal Research Centre for Horticultural Plant Breeding, Ahrensburg since the beginning in 1976. Following the final selection of tree fruit breeding material from the Max Planck Institute Köln-Vogelsang and the Fruit Experiment Station Jork the following programs were set up: breeding high quality apples with resistance to scab, mildew, and canker; breeding high quality sour cherry varieties; breeding dwarfing rootstocks for sweet cherries.
Papers and a poster were given: "On the inheritance of fruit colour and fruit size in apples" (Abstr.
No. 1100); "Susceptibility of apple varieties and hybrid progenies to canker (Nectria galligena) after artificial or natural infection" (Abstr.
No. 1015); and "Evaluation for rootstock characters in apomictic apple selections" (Abstr.
No 1199). The text of poster and lectures is included.
In 1976 fruit breeding was taken over by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and a small working group was established at the Federal Research Centre for Horticultural Plant Breeding (BFA) at Ahrensburg.
The reason for this was the retirement of Gruber, Bauer and Zwintzscher at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) at Köln-Vogelsang followed by the closing down of fruit breeding activities.
Shortly after that top fruit breeding, which had been done by Loewel and Saure at the Fruit Experiment Station Jork, came to a stop too.
To save at least the top fruit material which was left behind at Köln and Jork the evaluation and taking over of the best of the apple and sour cherry material was the first activity of the fruit breeding team.
At the same time new breeding objectives were set up and experiments were started on these lines. (1) High quality apple cultivars with resistance to scab, mildew and Nectria canker.
First hybrid seedlings from own crosses were grown in 1978. (2) High quality sour cherry varieties. (3) Dwarfing rootstocks for sweet cherries in cooperation with the Pomological Institute of Giessen University. (4) Final selection of apple rootstocks which are uniform through seed by apomixis.