Apple cultivars of breeding of Russian research institute of fruit crop breeding and acceleration of their creation and manufacturing application tasks

Russian Research Institute of Fruit Crop Breeding is the oldest breeding and pomology institution in Russia. Over the past 65 years, the Institute has created 56 apple cultivars of different fruit ripening periods. Cultivars with a long shelf life of fruits are of particular interest. Apple breeders in Russia and abroad face high and constantly increasing requirements for cultivars, especially in the context of the intensification of horticulture. Taking into account these high requirements, breeders of the Scientific Research Institute have created a series of scab-immune cultivars for the first time in Russia, and triploid cultivars obtained from intervalent crosses, and even triploid cultivars that are immune to scab, have been created for the first time in Russia and in the world. In order to keep up with the increasing requirements for cultivars, it is extremely necessary to reduce the time from the beginning of the breeding process (crossing) to the transfer of the cultivar to the State Register of Breeding Achievements allowed for use. Otherwise, the so-called "new" cultivar will not meet the increased production requirements. At the first stage of selection work (1953-1970), it took us in average 37 years to create 11 cultivars; at the second stage (1971-1980), it took in average 27 years to create 15 cultivars, and at the third stage (1981-2021), it took in average 23 years to create 25 cultivars. This is due to a more competent selection of parent pairs, the cultivation of seedlings on low-growing rootstocks, the use of artificial infectious background and other measures. Because seedlings of columnar cultivars have a shorter juvenile period, and columnar cultivars are characterized by a high rate of precocity, it takes in average 22 years to create columnar apple cultivars. For a faster production and biological evaluation of new cultivars, we consider it necessary, already when the best elite seedlings are being bred, but not later than the transfer of the cultivar to the state test, to lay out small production test gardens of 80-100 trees of the new cultivar with control cultivars on the territory of the breeding institution.