A SERIES OF NEW COMMERCIAL VARIETIES OF SWEET CHERRY FROM THE INRA BREEDING PROGRAMME

The French sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) breeding programme of the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA) began 30 years ago. Its objectives were to increase fruit size, quality and firmness, to expand the ripening period and to improve tree traits such as fruiting habit and precocity. Recently, the search for reduced susceptibility to fruit cracking was included and supported by genetic mapping studies with molecular markers. In the last four years, five new varieties have been selected and distributed commercially by our CEP innovation. These are: ‘Ferpin’, ‘Folfer’, ‘Fermina’, ‘Ferdiva’ and ‘Fertard’. They extend the maturity period from ‘Burlat’ maturity to 40 days after ‘Burlat’. The new varieties have large fruit size and good firmness. ‘Fermina’ is quite tolerant to fruit cracking. In the near future, three new varieties from the same series will be released; these are identified as: V 3868 (very large fruit size), V 3239 (large fruit size of good quality) and V 3476 (high productivity and firmness).