Effect of Pollination on Fruit Set and Evaluation of Phenological, Pomological and Morphological Characteristics of some Introduced Sweet Cherry Cultivars Under Khorasan Razavi Province

Authors

Abstract

Self and cross-incompatibility is one of the limiting factors in sweet cherry production. Scince some self-compatible exotic sweet cherry cultivars have been recently introduced to Iran, this study was conducted to investigate adabtibility of six introduced cultivars Summit, Red Dorfi clone 3, Sunburst, Samba, Blamarka and a local cultivar Siah Mashhad in Khorasan Razavi, Mashhad, Iran during 2010-2013. In most cultivars, flower buds were formed and developed on spurs, however flower formation in annual shoots was also observed. There were significant differences among cultivars for vegetative characters (height, width, crown volume and current season vegetative growth). Cultivars Summit and Sunburst had the highest and the lowest vegetative growth, respectively. There was 10 days variation in start of flowering time. Blamarka and Summit were early (27 March) and late (6 April) blooming cultivars, respectively. The results showed that fruit weight of cultivars was significantly different and Blamarka (3.14 g) and Sunburst (9.83 g) had the lowest and the highest fruit weight, respectively. Summit, Samba, Blamarka, and Siah-Mashhad were self-incompatible and cultivars Stella, Red Dorfi clone 3 clone and Sunburst were self-compatible under Khorasan Razavi province conditions.

Keywords