Breeding report of a new red pear cultivar 'Hongri'

Abstract:‘Hongri'is a new mid-ripening pear cultivar released by Liaoning Institute of Pomology resulted from a cross of‘Red Clapp's' בApple-pear'. Two hundred and thirty hybrid seeds were harvested from above cross combination in the fall of 1993 and 119 seedlings were bred in 1994. Young seedlings were replanted in 1995. One seedling was selected and identified as primary selected line coded as 93-6-50. Branching grafting and propagation were carried out in 2002. Twenty five seedlings were replanted in reselection site of our institute and tested in the regions in Tieling, Shenyang, Liaoyang, Anshan and Yingkou of Liaoning in 2004. The trees of‘Hongri'are vigorous and semi-spreading with scaled, rough and dark brown trunk. One-year-old branches are maroon with internode at 3.6 cm length and the leaf buds are oblique. Young leaves are pale red and ripe leaves are ovoid with petiole 3.22 cm in length. The average length of leaves is 11.84 cm and width is 5.46 cm with apiculate tips and serrated margins. There are 8.7 flowers in each inflorescence, and the average number of stamens is 20. Stigma and anthers have similar length with pale purple anthers. Fruit are oblate and smooth with white flesh and small core.Above 50% fruit surface are red(without bagging) with red sunny side from the young fruit period and yellow-green ground. Flesh is crisp, juicy, sweet and sour 3 to 4 d after harvesting and begin to soften with less stone cells and slight fragrant after 3 to 4 d ripening. The average fruit weight is 280 g with the largest fruit is 520 g and fruit shape index is 0.89. The quality of fruit is good with soluble solid content at 13.5%,titration acid content at 3.8 g·L-1and vitamin C content at 38.9 mg·kg-l. The fruit ripened in early September with 125 d development period. The germination rate of one-year-old branches is 70.2% with the extend of branching at 2.8. Axillary buds accounted for 24%. Each inflorescence have 1.8 fruit in average.The tree of‘Hongri'begin to fruit from 3-year-old and the yield can reach 1 246 kg per 666.7 m2 from 6-year-old trees. Canker disease index was 11.6, was significantly lower than the female parent‘Red Clapp's'(disease index 44.1) and reached the standard resistance. The fruits of‘Hongri'can be stored about 10 d at room temperature and up to 3 months in cold storage.‘Hongri'is suitable for cultivation in warm areas in Liaoning province such as Anshan, Yingkou, Dalian and Huludao.‘Hongri'can be cultivated in the plains and mountains and avoid the heavy clay soils with 2-3 m spacing and 4 m row spacing.‘Hongri'can choose‘Hongxiangsu pear',‘Hongxiao pear'and‘New Zealand red pear'as pollinated trees with the ratio of 8∶1.‘Hongri pear'was suited to train as improved spindle system. Fruit thinning was carried out within 40 d after fruit set with a standard of leaving a fruit at intervals of 15-20 cm and fruit has good shape and bright color without any diseases and pests and mechanical injuries.