NEW SELECTIONS OF YELLOW JAPANESE PLUM OBTAINED IN FLORENCE AT THE DOFI

One of the objectives of the main Italian and foreign plum breeding programs is to develop new cultivars with yellow skin and pulp in addition to good agronomic performance and high fruit quality.
Currently, few marketed cultivars have these characteristics which, therefore, should be targeted with specific breeding programs.
In fact, it is known that black and red skin colors are dominant over yellow, which is recessive and difficult to obtain unless both parents have yellow fruits.
A breeding program was established in 1996 at the University of Florence Horticulture Department, with the aim of developing new selections with yellow skin and pulp.
The crossing combinations were ‘T.C. Sun’ × ‘Golden Plum’, ‘T.C. Sun’ × ‘Shiro’ and ‘T.C. Sun’ × ‘Byrongold’. All seedlings obtained produced fruits with yellow skin and pulp, confirming that these characteristics are controlled by recessive homozygous genes.
The best results were obtained with seedlings from the ‘T.C. Sun’ × ‘Shiro’ and ‘T.C. Sun’ × ‘Byrongold’ crosses, from which 8 genotypes were selected with the following characteristics: sequential ripening periods, hardiness, high productivity and good fruit quality.

IX International Symposium on Plum and Prune Genetics, Breeding and Pomology

E. Bellini, V. Nencetti, L. Natarelli

Japanese plum, breeding, selections

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2010.874.46