The efficiency of research on the stone fruit crops breeding in the Nikita Botanical Gardens

The cultivars which do not fully meet the modern requirements are often grown in industrial gardening in the south of Russia. The main method of new cultivars creating is intraspecific and distant hybridization, and the key to the success of the selection is source material. In the Nikita Botanical Gardens, a lot of attention has been paid to the formation of fruit crop collections. 350 genotypes of apricot, 180 cherry plum, 93 ornamental peaches were included in the study. Twenty-seven sources of winter hardiness, spring frosts, and drought resistance, late flowering, early ripening, weak susceptibility to brown rot and shot-hole disease, large fruit, and high fruit quality, self-fertility, and yield were selected for apricot. Sixteen sources of winter hardiness, late flowering, very early ripening, weak growth, weak susceptibility to shot-hole disease, large-fruited, good taste, quality, appearance and pleasant aroma of fruits, dark color of fruits and pulp, gristly pulp, anthocyanin color of leaves and high yield were of interest for cherry plum. Nine late-flowering cultivars, 4 winter-hardy, 3 resistant to the main fungal pathogens, 11 with a weeping crown, 3 with a pillar-type crown, and 2 dwarfs were selected for peach from the gene pool of ornamental peach with a different geographical origin. The breeding work with the participation of these cultivars has been initiated to improve the assortment of fruit crops. The involvement of selected promising sources of valuable economic and biological characteristics in the breeding process contributes to the successful selection of initial cultivars pairs and increases the efficiency of crosses.