Evaluation of auto-fertility in some Iranian promising apricot cultivars

In apricot, the presence of self-incompatible cultivars creates limitations for fruit production. Apricot breeding programs are running continuously in many countries. In Iran, three experimental sites have been working on this fruit species for 50 years. For each site that presents a specific climate, some promising cultivars are under evaluation. Fertility situation is a common trait during evaluations and so the self-incompatibility of these promising cultivars has been studied. Here the results are presented. In West Azerbaijan province (Tabriz) AD405, AD626, HS731, AD732, AD412, DM101, AC113 and Canino (as control tree), in Khorasan-e-Razavi province (DOSHIRV-2, SHOG-4, GHIS-2,_SH-48, SH-46) and ‘Cafona’ as check plant and in Alborz province (Karaj), KB52(107502), KB39(107563), KB24(107558), KB21(107548), KB7(107572) and ‘Canino’ as control tree were examined for 3 years. All cultivars in Karaj showed self-incompatibility, as Khorasan cultivars, and finally in Tabriz, all cultivars except AD732 which showed the possibility of self-compatibility. In all experiments, the self-compatibility of control trees was confirmed by recording 16.1% for ‘Cafona’ and 22.6% for ‘Canino’ after self-pollination. The cross-compatibility of cultivars in each group of apricots was tested too, considering the pollen germination ratio and flowering season overlapping to determine pollinizers. We discarded to test some of the cultivars with low pollen germination and very soon or late flowering time.