Articles
THE IMPACT OF BREEDING ON FRUIT PRODUCTION IN WARM CLIMATES OF BRAZIL
Article number
864_2
Pages
29 – 38
Language
English
Abstract
Brazil is a very large country with a diverse climate.
This fact allows a diversity of plants to grow ranging from the tropical rainforest in the Amazon, Atlantic Forest along the coast, the cerrados (savannah) in the Central-West region, and semi-arid area in the Northeast.
Latitude ranges from 5°N to 33°S, with most of this territory in the Tropical region.
There is enough reasons to plant breeders devote great amount of their effort to improve plants suitable for warm climates, though.
Among fruit crops, results of breeders work has been noticed in several species, especially on peaches, grapes, citrus, apples, persimmons, figs, pears and others not so common, such as acerola, guava, annonas (sour sop, sugar apple, atemoya, cherimoya) and passion fruit.
Peach, a typically temperate fruit, was cultivated during centuries in the Orient, Europe and Americas at high latitudes (30° and 50°, North and South), with 500 to 2,000 hours of temperatures below 7.2°C. Peach tree introduced at low latitude (22±2°S) requires climatic adaptation to subtropical conditions of low chilling.
In Brazil, the first peach breeding program aiming adaptation of cultivars to different habitats was developed by Instituto Agronômico (IAC) beginning in the end of the 40s.
From 1950 to 1990, many cultivars were released in São Paulo, Brazil.
With better pomological characteristics and adequate evolution of peach orchards, these cultivars have been widely accepted by fruit growers and consumers in areas with 50100 hours of chilling or less.
In the seventies, crosses among nectarines and peaches, leading to segregation of intermediary color skin (between green and red) originating peaches with pink skin and earlier.
Later on, intercrossing F1s or backcrossing to nectarines: types with very red skin, large fruits, yellow and firm flesh.
Petrolina/Juazeiro, in the Northeastern region (9°S), is the main grape exporting region with more than 6,000 ha.
Viticulture in the region is based in the so called tropical rootstocks released by IAC, namely: IAC 313 Tropical, IAC 572 Jales. Recently, almost all new plantings (with seedless varieties) are being grafted on IAC 766 Campinas.
This fact allows a diversity of plants to grow ranging from the tropical rainforest in the Amazon, Atlantic Forest along the coast, the cerrados (savannah) in the Central-West region, and semi-arid area in the Northeast.
Latitude ranges from 5°N to 33°S, with most of this territory in the Tropical region.
There is enough reasons to plant breeders devote great amount of their effort to improve plants suitable for warm climates, though.
Among fruit crops, results of breeders work has been noticed in several species, especially on peaches, grapes, citrus, apples, persimmons, figs, pears and others not so common, such as acerola, guava, annonas (sour sop, sugar apple, atemoya, cherimoya) and passion fruit.
Peach, a typically temperate fruit, was cultivated during centuries in the Orient, Europe and Americas at high latitudes (30° and 50°, North and South), with 500 to 2,000 hours of temperatures below 7.2°C. Peach tree introduced at low latitude (22±2°S) requires climatic adaptation to subtropical conditions of low chilling.
In Brazil, the first peach breeding program aiming adaptation of cultivars to different habitats was developed by Instituto Agronômico (IAC) beginning in the end of the 40s.
From 1950 to 1990, many cultivars were released in São Paulo, Brazil.
With better pomological characteristics and adequate evolution of peach orchards, these cultivars have been widely accepted by fruit growers and consumers in areas with 50100 hours of chilling or less.
In the seventies, crosses among nectarines and peaches, leading to segregation of intermediary color skin (between green and red) originating peaches with pink skin and earlier.
Later on, intercrossing F1s or backcrossing to nectarines: types with very red skin, large fruits, yellow and firm flesh.
Petrolina/Juazeiro, in the Northeastern region (9°S), is the main grape exporting region with more than 6,000 ha.
Viticulture in the region is based in the so called tropical rootstocks released by IAC, namely: IAC 313 Tropical, IAC 572 Jales. Recently, almost all new plantings (with seedless varieties) are being grafted on IAC 766 Campinas.
Authors
C.V. Pommer, W. Barbosa
Keywords
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