Evaluation of introduced peach cultivars in the Crimean steppe region

In the Steppe Horticulture Laboratory of the Nikitsky Botanical Garden, there is an extensive collection of peach, nectarine and decorative peach germplasm. The share of foreign cultivars is 56%. Currently, the peach collection includes 171 foreign cultivars of American, European and Central Asian origin. The purpose of our study was to evaluate foreign peach cultivars for yield and adaptation to the environmental conditions of the southern Crimea steppe region. Our goal was to identify select high-yielding peach samples with attractive fruits of good taste. The climate of the Crimean steppe is hot and dry, with a long growing season and relatively mild winters. Thirty five cultivars bred in the US, Canada, Italy, Moldova, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and etc. were studied. The rootstocks used were seedlings of wild almonds. Almond is the rootstock most adapted to our agroclimatic conditions. The planting scheme was 6×3 m. The soil was a southern chernozem (black soil), which was kept with “black steam”. Normal agronomic practices were followed in managing the trees. We used traditional methods for evaluating the cultivars. As a result, peach cultivars were identified as high yielding, average yielding, low yielding or poor yielding. High-yielding cultivars included ‘Baby Gold-8’, ‘Hogrande Feridel’, ‘Sun Haven’, ‘Sunbeam’, ‘Red Haven’, ‘Baby Gold-6’, ‘Stanford’, ‘Madison’, ‘Nezhnyiy’, ‘Jersey Queen’, and ‘Vostok 3’. Cultivars with attractive appearance and good taste were ‘Comanche’, ‘Red Haven’, ‘Rich Haven’, ‘Stanford’, and ‘Sun Haven’. Cultivars with combined commercially important characteristics and good fruit taste have been recommended for use in breeding programs and for testing in other climatic zones. Low-yielding and poor harvest cultivars (‘Dawn’, ‘Grande, ‘Guroch’, ‘Meadon York’ and ‘Early Coronet’) have been proposed to exclusion from the study in this soil-climatic zone.