Apple assortment regular updating is an urgent task for gardeners and breeders

On average, out of 57 apple cultivars bred by the All-Russian Research Institute of Fruit Crop Breeding, 19.4 years were spent from hybridization to inclusion in the State Test and 26.4 years before inclusion in the State Register. Naturally, the time period is too long. During this period, the requirements for new cultivars have changed and increased significantly. For example, not so long ago ‘Pepin Shafranniy’ was the best of the winter cultivars of apples in the Central Russia and it occupied huge areas of orchards. This apple cultivar was characterized by scab resistance, high commercial and taste qualities of fruits. Currently, it has become infected with scab and has largely lost its advantages. Industrial horticulture needs new highly adaptive apple varieties with excellent quality of fruits. In this regard, it is necessary to strive for a systematic renewal of the apple assortment. If for wheat, the main grain crop of Russia, according to the Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Bespalova Lyudmila Andreevna, "the life expectancy of the variety should be from five to ten years," then for the apple tree, the life expectancy of the cultivar, in our opinion, should be no more than 20-25 years. It should be noted that in the future more attention should be paid to the creation of varieties adaptive to local conditions, including triploid and columnar cultivars immune or with high field resistance to scab, as well as cultivars with an increased content of biologically active substances in fruits.