THE ITALIAN NATIONAL PEACH BREEDING PROJECT

In 1994 the Ministry for Agricultural and Forestry Policy (Mi.P.A.F.) has financed a national research program named “Fruit Growing”, coordinated by the Istituto Sperimentale per la Frutticoltura (ISF) and composed of several projects relevant to stone fruit breeding, pome fruit breeding, rootstock breeding, strawberry breeding, tree training, post harvest, and marketing.
Working groups on peach are active within the stone fruit and rootstock breeding projects.
The main objectives of the breeding programs were: improved fruit quality, resistance or tolerance to diseases and pests (both for scions and rootstocks), suitability for difficult soils (for rootstocks).
Nine units, belonging to Mi.P.A.F. (Fruit Tree and Plant Pathology Research Institutes) and University (Bologna, Florence and Pisa), were involved.
Up to now, 7 peach cultivars, 1 nectarine and 2 rootstocks have been commercially released and several scion advanced selections are under evaluation for brown rot, leaf curl, green aphid resistance or tolerance, and rootstock selections for chlorosis, asphixya, nematodes, Armillaria and Phytophthora resistance or tolerance.

V International Peach Symposium

C. Fideghelli

peach, breeding, variety, rootstock, quality, pest resistance

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2002.592.8