Articles
PRE-SEASON POLLEN COLLECTION AND OUTDOOR HYBRIDIZATION FOR POLLINIZER DETERMINATION IN SWEET CHERRY CV. ‘SIAH MASHAD’
Therefore, the study of fruit set and compatibility determination of various cultivars is essential for optimum fruit production in the sweet cherry industry.
With this aim, the present study was carried out on one of the most important commercial Iranian cultivar (‘Siah Mashad’). The main objectives were to determine and introduce suitable pollinizers and explore the compatibility or incompatibility of some sweet cherry cultivars in fertilization and fruit set of cultivar ‘Siah Mashad’. This cultivar was hand pollinated using collected pollen from ‘Soraty Lavasan’, ‘Shabestar’, ‘Cilege Blamarka’, and ‘Napoleon’ cultivars.
Also, ‘Siah Mashad’ was self pollinated in order to evaluate its pollen compatibility.
After fertilization, fruit number was recorded and percent of final fruit set calculated and analyzed.
Preliminary study showed that cultivar ‘Siah Mashad’ needs 900 hour cold temperature for its chilling requirement.
In addition, pollen of all cultivars showed high viability and germination (65–75 percent) in the viability test before used in hand pollination.
The mean of final fruit set of ‘Soraty Lavasan’, ‘Shabestar’, ‘Cilege Blamarka’, and ‘Napoleon’ after hybridization with ‘Siah Mashad’ were 34, 31, 18 and 15 percent, respectively.
Also, results showed that ‘Siah Mashad’ is self-incompatible (fruit set = 0) and therefore it is not necessary to emasculate this cultivar in hybridization programmes.
According to the results ‘Soraty Lavasan’, ‘Shabestar’ (group A), ‘Cilege Blamarka’, and ‘Napoleon’ (group B) are cross-compatible with ‘Siah Mashad’. Cherry growers may therefore use these cultivars as pollinizers in sweet cherry cv. ‘Siah Mashad’ orchards.