POLLINATION OF THREE MAIN APRICOT CULTIVARS IN FRANCE

The regularity of the production in relation with the lack of adaptation is a serious bottleneck of the apricot cultivars.
The induced economical incidence is increasing by the introduction of new self-incompatible cultivars.
Some new technical problems have to be solved, such as identification of a pollinator and the management of the cross-pollination.
Cultivars such as Goldrich, Lambertin n°1 and Sortilège® are fully embedded in France.

So an experiment has been carried out on these three cultivars in order to identify efficient pollinators: i) a set of potential pollinators characterized by the same blooming period has been selected among the actual varieties, ii) active cross-pollinations have been performed in orchard, iii) and a validation in a laboratory has been conducted by studying a pollen tube migration on representative samples of flowers.

Efficient pollinators have been identified for the 3 cultivars.
Wide differences have been observed in between the different pollinators in term of pollen tube migration, and cross-incompatibility between combinations has been shown.
The question of partly-self-compatible cultivars such as Goldrich is still remaining.

XI International Symposium on Apricot Culture

J.M. Audergon, J.M. Duffillol, Ch. Pinet, Ph. Blanc

floral biology, fertility, self-compatibility, productivity

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1999.488.51