Apples and pears and their relatives - Biology of Apples and Pears - page 26

Table . ( cont. ) Interspecific hybrids

Species Parentage Distribution

NATURALLY OCCURRING
P . × bretschneideri Rehder P. ussuriensis × P. betulifolia Northern China

P . × phaeocarpa Rehder P. betulifolia × P. ussuriensis Northern China

P . × serrulata Rehder P. pyrifolia × P. calleryana Central China

P . × compelexa Rubtzov Unknown Caucasus

P . × salvifolia DC P. communis × P. nivalis Europe, Crimea

P . × canescens Sprach P. nivalis × P. salicifolia -

PROBABLE ARBOTEA OR ARTIFICIAL HYBRIDS
P .

× ×

lecontei Rehder P. communis P. pyrifolia -

P . × michauxii Bosc exPoiret P. amygdaliformis (?) × P. nivalis -

P . × uyematsuana Makino P. dimorphophylla × P. hondoensis Korea

Source: Adapted from Rehder ( ), Westwood ( ), Wiersen (personal communi-

cation, ).

From Bell et al .( ). Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons Inc.

and Zeven and Zhukovsky (

cultivars of both scions and rootstocks may or may not continue: there are,
indeed, some indications of demand for a greater choice. However, in consid-
ering the role of cultivars in apple and pear production the basic background
questionistodefinewhytherearestilldifferentcultivars/cultivargroupsrather
than a universal cultivar with production methodologies tailored to different
environments. Description of the main cultivars, where they are grown and
their key differences in terms of environmental requirements and their biology,
also assists in the interpretation of the results of horticultural and biological
studies using different cultivars as the test plants.

Apple scion cultivars

The statistics of production by cultivar are incomplete and the rate of change
is appreciable, but Table

. gives an indication of the balance of produc-

tion in the mid- s. Seven cultivars, 'Delicious' ('Red Delicious'), 'Golden

Delicious', 'Fuji', 'Granny Smith', 'Jonagold', 'Gala' and 'Idared' accounted
for more than % of the total production in those countries with relevant

data, the first three alone accounting for more than

%. The figures prob-
ably underestimate the importance of 'Fuji', given the scale of its planting in
China, where Shou-Chun (

% of all apples.
They also do not show the importance of cold-resistant cultivars grown in
the former USSR, where Way et al. (

) noted that it represented

) reported that half of the production
consisted of 'Common Antonovka', 'Anis', 'Papirovka', 'Koricznoje Polosatoje'
and 'Ossiennoje Polosatoje'.