METHODS OF ACCELERATING THE CROPPING OF APPLE TREES BY REDUCING THE JUVENILE PHASE

The breeding process can be greatly accelerated by choosing early cropping parental forms like varieties - 'Wealthy', 'Spartan', 'Lobo', 'Idared', 'Anyzove', 'Antonovka Novaya' etc. Pre-selected seedlings during the summer of the second year are budded on a dwarfed rootstock. Instead of M 27, which does not show sufficient frost hardeness under the conditions of the central region of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, the dwarfing rootstock No. 396 of the selection by V.I. Budagovskij could be used. The selection process can be reduced to 3 – 3.5 year by means of grafting 1 – 2-year-old apple seedlings into the crowns of mature trees. Besides shortening the juvenile period of the hybrids, this technique makes it possible to bud as many as 50 seedlings per tree onopy at the same time.