The Effective Pollination Period of European Plum (Prunus domestica L.) Cultivars in Western Norway

Stein Harald Hjeltnes,Milica Fotirić Akšić,Radosav Cerović,Mekjell Meland

doi:10.3390/horticulturae8010055

Stein Harald Hjeltnes, Milica Fotirić Akšić + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae8010055

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Abstract

This study evaluated the effective pollination period (EPP) in four European plum (Prunus domestica L.) cultivars (‘Mallard’, ‘Edda’, ‘Jubileum’, and ‘Reeves’) during two years (2018–2019) under the environmental conditions in western Norway. The pollination of plum cultivars was carried out one, three, five, seven, and nine days after anthesis (DAA) with a pollen mix of two compatible cultivars (‘Victoria’ and ‘Opal’). Initial, middle-season, and final fruit set was recorded after one month and two months after pollination and just before the harvest, respectively. On average from both years cultivar ‘Jubileum’ had the highest fruit set when pollinated one, three, five, seven, and nine DAA (33.23%, 30.83%, 8.47%, 3.08%, and 1.15%, respectively), which was more than two folds higher fruit set than in the other studied cultivars. Cultivar ‘Jubileum’ showed significantly reduced fruit set between pollination on five and nine DAA, while cultivars ‘Mallard’, ‘Edda’, and ‘Reeves’ had markedly reduced fruit set if pollinated three to five DAA, implying that the EPP in ‘Jubileum’ was five days while in the rest it was three days. Variation of weather conditions during the flowering period in both years did not have a major effect on the receptivity of stigmas in the studied plum cultivars, which means that the existing differences in the length of EPP is maternal-genotype dependent.

Highlights

Awareness of flowering time of plum cultivars is fundamental for a proper choice of cultivar combination that provides successful pollination and fertilization for acceptable fruit set [11]
effective pollination period (EPP) was positively and significantly correlated with each pollination time but the highest coefficient of correlation was between EPP and one days after anthesis (DAA) (r = 0.83, p = 0.011). This correlation decreased with the delay in pollination time. These results indicated that the length of EPP depend the most on fruit set immediately after flower opening
Stigma receptivity in studied plum cultivars was adequate during anthesis, and plum flowers were able to produce optimum fruit set when pollinated at the beginning of flowering

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. There are two important species of plum in commercial horticulture, namely European plum and prunes (Prunus domestica L.) and the Asian or Japanese plums (Prunus salicina). Both belong to the Rosaceae family and have been cultivated for at least 2000–4000 years. The European plum is a very important temperate zone fruit species, but can be grown both in a cooler climate and in sub-tropical conditions. The P. salicina plums are mostly grown in China and P. domestica in southern Europe. P. domestica is well adapted to cooler climate such as northern Europe.

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