VARIABILITY IN PRUNUS MAHALEB L. FOR CHERRY ROOTSTOCK BREEDING

This report is about the variability of Prunus mahaleb (L.) Mill. in the rootstock selection program at the Department of Fruit Growing in Budapest.
Three sub-species of mahaleb cherry, ssp. simonkai, ssp. cupaniana and ssp. mahaleb (Terpó, 1968) occur in Hungary with great natural variability.
Collection and research on these sub-species started in the late 1950s (Sebôk, 1968). From among them, one self-fertile clone and some clones with basitonic tendency were selected and tested as cherry rootstocks.

In order to enlarge the selection base, inbred populations from flowering of isolated self-fertile trees and hybrids from cross-pollination were produced.
Inbreeding of ‘Korponay’, a self-fertile mahaleb variety, resulted in specimens with high variability.
In contrast, the self-fertile ‘Heimann X’ S₁ mahaleb produced a homogenous population, except for 20% with dwarfing characteristics.

Generation F₁ emerging from cross-pollination of self-sterile clones is homogenous and very vigorous.
The variability produced by inbreeding and cross-pollination provided a suitable means to increase the selection base for rootstock breeding.

II International Cherry Symposium

K. Hrotkó

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1996.410.27