The tolerance to cracking of early ripening sweet cherry hybrids

Rain-induced cracking is a major problem in many cherry growing regions of the world. Even in drier growing areas, it can be a major problem in occasional years. Cracking occurs during or after rainfall and usually shortly before harvest. The rain induced fruit cracking is a big, serious and costly problem for cherry growers. In some years and with some cultivars the problem is extremely severe, with up to 90% of the fruits. However, ıt has been shown that as little as 25% cracked fruit can render harvesting uneconomic on account of the escalating cost of harvesting and handling of the fruit (Looney, 1985) Furthermore, after rainfall, even the uncracked fruit has much decreased storage quality, despite its macroscopically intact surface (Børve et al., 2000), Therefore, it is one of the main goals for breeders to develop a cultivar of tolerances to rain cracking. In this study, The cracking index of 15 early maturing genotypes from different parents were determined. Susceptibility to fruit cracking i.e. fruit cracking index was determined by the method of Christensen (1996). Crack index values and rankings of genotypes have changed according to years. None of the genotypes were in the low sensitive group. Cracking indexes of genotypes ranged from 16.0 to 66.5.