Promising garden plum varieties of Krymsk EBS, VIR Branch breeding for prunes production

Abstract

In the garden plum assortment of Russia, until recently there was an almost complete absence of varieties with fruits suitable for making high-quality prunes, which prevented expansion of the production of this valuable product. This necessitated the selection of garden plum varieties suitable for prunes production in a number of scientific institutions of the country, including the Krymsk EBS, VIR Branch. As a result of the works carried out at the station, the following results were obtained: In the gene pool of garden plum, Yubileynaya Sochinskaya and Blufry varieties were allocated. They combine high qualities of fruits for preparing prunes with good adaptability to the climatic conditions of South Russia, which have been used as selectionally valuable traits sources in programs of new dry fruit varieties’ creation. High-tech dry-fruit plum varieties combining adaptability with productivity and high prunes quality were selected; 8 of them are included in the State Register of the Russian Federation. For different cultivation technologies of new plum varieties, zoned clone rootstocks bred on Krymsk EBS, VIR Branch are recommended: medium-grown drought-resistant with good trees’ root system anchoring (for mechanized fruit harvesting) - Zarevo, Evrika 99, Druzhba; small-grown - VVA 1, VSV 1, Best.