Main characteristics of new plum cultivars bred at Holovousy

Abstract

Three new plum cultivars named Kamir, Samera and Simona were evaluated together with standard cultivars (Čačanská Lepotica, Čačanská Raná and Hanita) in a trial orchard established in the spring of 2004. These cultivars differ significantly among each other in tree vigour. Cv. Simona is the least vigorous whereas cv. Kamir the most. Regarding fruit harvest time, cv. Simona is the earliest one (early August), whereas cv. Kamir is the latest one (early September). The fruit size of the new cultivars, except for cv. Simona is comparable to the standards used in this study. The most productive in the first years of evaluation was cv. Kamir but later on its productivity was slightly reduced by its stronger tree vigour. Cv. Simona had moderately smaller yield than cv. Kamir but its yield efficiency was the highest due to its smaller canopy size. Fruit characteristics of all the new cultivars were practically on the same level as those of the standard cultivars. A certain advantage of the new cultivars is their uniform dark blue fruit colour that could be better accepted by consumers.

Keywords

• tree vigour
• time of flowering
• time of harvest
• yield
• fruit characteristics