Breeding report of a new early-ripening sweet cherry cultivar ‘Zhuangyuanhong'

Abstract:‘Zhuangyuanhong'is a good-quality mutation selected from sweet cherry‘Hongdeng'. In1999, an original plant was selected from the bud mutation of‘Hongdeng'. It was found that its character-istics on the property and the quality were different from the former‘Hongdeng'fruits. Furthermore, it ex-pressed some good characteristics such as big size, early ripening and good tasting. In 2002, the result in-dicated that the clone propagated by top graft has the same characteristics as its mother plants. We com-pared its characteristics with‘Hongdeng'in detail. The results showed that‘Zhuangyuanhong'is reallya bud mutation. After years of observation, the comprehensive characters both top graft and grafted seed-lings were always consistent with the mother plant. It was showed that it has stable genetic traits. It was re-leased as‘Zhuangyuanhong'after the validation by the Committee of Liaoning Cultivar Registration in2016. The trees have a half open gesture. Young trees grow strongly. After entering the fruit stage, the vig-or of growth of the trees is middle. The leaves are elliptic, 16.6 cm long, 8.2 cm wide. The flower character-istics are as follows: petals suborbicular, overlapping, stamens lower than pistil, stamens are 33, averagelongitudinal diameter of petals is 1.4 cm, average horizontal diameter of it is 1.4 cm, and the averagelength of the flower stalk is 1.0 cm. Fruit shape is reniform with an early season cultivar. Average weightis 11.3 g and maximum weight is 14.3. The skin of the fruit is mauve. The content of soluble solid is20.7%, the content of soluble sugar is 13.8%, the content of total acid is 7.5 g·kg^-1, dry matter content is22.1%, vitamin C is 118 mg·kg^-1 et al. Quality is excellent. The fruit development period is 42 d and itmatures at the early June in Dalian area; the ratios of the fruiting branch of the 6 year-old plant are as fol-lows: long branches is 11.2%, middle branches is 12.8%, short branches is 10.9%, flower bundle and clus-ter is 59.5%. Open pollination fruit rate is 44.2%. This variety can bear fruits after three years from theplanting, and it has high yield potential. During the period of growth, diseases and insect pests are neces-sary to be controlled. The trees and the flower buds have strong cold hardiness, disease resistance such asbacterial perforation, leaf spot, and the strong ability of early deciduous. Compared with the usual variet-ies such as‘Jiahong'‘Hongmi'‘Hongyan'‘Tieton', it has stronger resistance of the flow gum disease.The fruit is suitable for storage and transportation. The adaptability of the variety is strong, and the suit-able planting range is wide. Orchard should choose neutral sandy soil and has ability of moisture and fer-tilizer retention; spacing in the rows and spacing between rows are 3 m×4 m or 3m ×5 m. The configura-tions of pollinizer are‘Summit'‘Lapins' ‘Ranier'and‘Wanhongzhu'et al.