Apricot breeding at the Faculty of Horticulture in Lednice

Abstract

The aim of the apricot-breeding program in the Horticultural Faculty in Lednice, that has been developed since 1981, is to obtain new adaptable cultivars, which combine most of the valuable biological traits. Standard breeding techniques, such as crossing by emasculation and hand pollination, self-pollination and open pollination, were employed. A total of 1.154 crossings were produced from more than 110 different parents. So far more than 20,000 seedlings have been obtained, of which about 13,000 have already been evaluated. The most interesting selections were grafted and planted in trial orchards (we now have more than 650 elite genotypes). Ten of these have already been registered, and further promising new hybrids have been submitted for registration and law right protection (Betinka, Candela, Sophia and Adriana). The basic prerequisite for the initiation of the breeding program was a large collection of genetic resources, established and gradually supplemented since the 1970s. At the present time, we preserve and manage more than 300 accessions of apricot trees. In the frame of the descriptive work of the genetic resources and in order to use in breeding, a collection of apricots has been evaluated. We selected the genotypes and characters relating to an increased level of adaptation to the environment.