Selection improvement of pear (Pyrus communis L.) in the Lower Volga region

Abstract

Over the past several decades, work has been carried out in the Lower Volga region to improve the assortment of pears using classical and analytical selection methods. Until 2016, the main breeding work was carried out in the Lower Volga Research Institute of Agriculture after the reorganization in the Federal Research Center for Agroecology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The selection process was based on the methods of stepwise intervarietal hybridization. High-winter-hardy, but with low quality fruits, varieties of local selection and high-quality, but not sufficiently stable, varieties of western selection were used as parent forms. As a result, varieties and hybrids were obtained that have high fruit qualities and increased resistance to abiotic and biotic stress factors of various periods of consumption. Currently, three varieties are zoned in 8 regions, a number of varieties and hybrids are undergoing preliminary and state tests, and can be used both in production and further breeding as donors and sources of economically valuable traits.