RESULTS OF THE BLUEBERRY BREEDING AT THE RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR FRUIT GROWING PITESTI

Abstract

The high bush blueberry breeding program at RIFG Pitesti has been conducted since 1982, having the aim the obtaining new cultivars well adapted to the Romanian ecological conditions. The main objectives of this program were high yield and quality, extending the ripening season, good plant habit and evenness in ripening for the easy of picking. For inducing the variability, different genetic resources, mainly American high bush blueberry cultivars were involved in a high number of controlled crosses and open hybridizations. Consequently, more than 20.000 off springs in the hybrid selection field and 540 selections in micro trials were evaluated. In 1998 the first new cultivars were released: Azur and Safir, followed by Angusta cv. (in1999)and other 4 new cvs.: Delicia , Simultan (in 2001), Lax and Compact (in 2002). Also, other promising selections have been now under evaluation in the field trial. Of these, E 4/45 and E 3/85 advanced selections are ready to be named. These are high yielding in the first fruiting years (2.15 kg/bush and, 2.31 kg per bush respectively, versus 1.40 kg/bush of the control cv., Bluecrop).The paper deals with the highlighting of some results obtained along the breeding program regarding the crossability of different genitors in simple and reciprocal crosses, the heritability of the main quantitative characters: bush vigour, productivity, berry size and colour within some hybrids families and the new cultivars and advanced selections