Fruit Varieties and Horticultural Digest (J Fruit Var & Hort Digest)
Volume 21 Number 4 Article 11 Pages: 81-81
Year 1967 Month 10
Title: Pear Breeding in Ohio
Author: APS Citation
Abstract:
A pear breeding program was initiated
in 1966 by the Department of
Horticulture of the Ohio Agricultural
Research and Development Center at
Wooster in cooperation with the
U.S.D.A. The work is being directed
by W.A. Oitto, of the U.S.D.A. The
basic objectives are to obtain pear
varieties of high quality, resistant to
fireblight, and adapted to Ohio conditions.
High quality European pear cultivars
are being crossed with selections
from earlier programs which show exceptional
quality and apparent good
resistance to blight.
The latter selections
are the result of crossing European
pear cultivars with blight resistant
species such as Pyrus serotina
(sand pear), P. ussuriemis (Ussurian
pear) and P. calleryana (Callerypear).
Some 1200 seedlings were planted
at Wooster in 1966. New seedlings
will be added each year (1000-2000)
until a totaf of 12,000 have been
planted.
A planting of cultivars will
also be maintained for evaluation, and
as a source of breeding material.
When facilities for mass inoculation
of seedlings become available at Beltsville,
all progenies will be screened for fireblight, and only resistant seedlings
will be planted in the orchard at
Wooster.
