Aims of the apple breeding programme at Wädenswil

Abstract

The apple varieties’ schweizer Orangenapfel’, ‘Maigold’, ‘Goro’, ‘Arlet’, ‘Iduna’ and ‘Marina’ were released from the Swiss Federal Research Station Wadenswil. The requirements for future apple varieties are: outstanding quality, good yielding performance and durable disease resistance. Disease resistant apple varieties constitute an important component of a fruit production with a low input of chemicals. However, disease resistant varieties will only be commercially successful if fruit quality and yield capacity are similar or superior to well-known commercial varieties. The programme for breeding disease resistant apple varieties at Wadenswil started in 1986. Each year about 8,000 apple seeds are produced. The seedlings are screened for scab resistance in the glasshouse and for mildew susceptibility and growth habit in the nursery. From about 500 selected seedlings annually one tree on M27 is budded to evaluate fruit and tree characters. The most promising selections are included in our variety testing scheme. The first advanced selections will soon be available for grower trials.