NEW PEAR CULTIVARS FROM DRESDEN-PILLNITZ

The pear breeding program was started in 1961 by Mildenberger at Naumburg/Saale.
Fischer undertook the selection at Dresden-Pillnitz from 1971. The aims of selection were excellent fruit quality, good appearance and shape of the fruits, early, annual and heavy cropping, resistance to scab and fire blight, and long storability.
The new cultivars are: summer (in time of ‘Bunte Juli’): ‘Hermann™’, ‘Isolda^®’; autumn (in time of ‘Bonne de Longueval’/‘Gute Luise’): ‘Armida™’, ‘Gräfin Gepa™’; late autumn (in time of ‘Conferece’): ‘Hortensia^®’, ‘Gerburg™’, ‘Graf Dietrich^®’; winter (in time of ‘Alexander Lucas’): ‘David^®’, ‘Eckehard™’, ‘Graf Wilhelm™’, ‘Thimo^®’, ‘Uta^®’.
The trademark (™) is ‘SAXONIA’… for all cultivars.
These new cultivars are not susceptible to scab, but have differing degrees of susceptibility to fire blight.
The best result in fire blight testing was from ‘Uta’. The fruit quality is good (‘Hermann’, ‘Isolda’, ‘Hortensia’, ‘Eckehard’, ‘Gepa’) to excellent (‘Uta’, ‘Gerburg’, ‘Graf Wilhelm’, ‘Thimo’), the yield capacity high (‘Gepa’, ‘Graf Dietrich’, ‘Gerburg’) to very high (‘Uta’, ‘Eckehard’, ‘Hortensia’, ‘Thimo’), the growth is very dwarf (‘David’, ‘Uta’, ‘Armida’) to semi vigorous, and the storability of the winter cultivars in cold storage is until February/March (‘Thimo’, ‘Eckehard’, ‘Uta’) and April (‘David’). The cultivars are an improvement of the current varieties for fresh market, and some of the cultivars are also excellent for processing (‘Uta’, ‘Thimo’).

XI Eucarpia Symposium on Fruit Breeding and Genetics

M. Fischer, G. Mildenberger

Pyrus communis L., yield, fruit quality, growing capacity

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2004.663.164