Hybridizing 'McIntosh Wijcik' and heat-tolerant apple cultivars to develop precocious seedling trees with improved tree architecture.

摘要

This project began in 1991 with a cross between 'McIntosh Wijcik' and 'Gala' apples in an effort to develop a new apple cultivar that was well-suited to the Mid-Atlantic's hot and humid growing season. The goal was to create a grower friendly cultivar that was dwarfing which would not require labor intensive methods of budding, pruning, and branch angle manipulation. A second cross made in 1999 between the 'CompactGalaMac' (CGMx) progeny of the 1991 cross and four commercial cultivars yielded progeny which had compact phenotype; field tolerance to diseases and pests; precocity and productivity; heat tolerance, fruit firmness and lack of preharvest drop typical of 'Gala'; fruit taste attributes from both 'Pink Lady' and 'Fuji'. These trees could potentially be grown on their own roots, avoiding the problems that accompany size-controlling rootstocks.