Articles
ASPARAGUS BREEDING IN THE NETHERLANDS
Screening for yield, quality of the harvested spears, spear thickness and earliness of the new hybrids takes a lot of time, space and labour.
Following our earlier results a new experiment was started in 1988 to investigate how many years of harvesting are necessary to select the most promising new hybrids and to define the genetic capacity of the new inbred lines.
This experiment was harvested till 1992 and during this period the most promising hybrids were selected.
From the 79 experimental hybrids, the 20 most promising were selected after two years and after three years harvesting an extra five were selected.
These last five were added because they reached their production potential at a later stage.
In 1992 the same 25 earlier selected hybrids seemed again to be the most promising.
In 1992 a new field trial with 200 experimental hybrids was planted and the evaluation will also be based on three years of harvesting.