Apple Pollination Biology for Stable and Novel Fruit Production : Search System for Apple Cultivar Combination Showing Incompatibility, Semicompatibility, and Full-Compatibility Based on the S-RNase Allele Database

Abstract EN

Breeding and cultivation of new apple cultivars are among the most attractive and important issues for apple researchers.

As almost all apple cultivars exhibit gametophytic self-incompatibility (GSI), cross-pollination between genetically different cultivars and species is essential not only for stable fruit production, but also for breeding of new cultivars.

For cross-pollination by insect or hand pollination, pollen viability and pistil fertility are key factors, but also the mechanism of GSI has to be taken into account.

This paper reviews the germination rate of pollen after storage in different conditions, at different periods of flowering, and in combination with pistil fertility and cross-compatibility among wild-, crab-, and cultivated apples.

Furthermore, suitable cultivar combinations for new attractive apple cultivars based on GSI are explored.

Especially, details about S-genotypes of apple cultivars, which are present in recent cultivar catalogues, are introduced together with a newly established on-line searchable database of S-genotypes of cultivars, wild apples and crab apples that shows incompatibility, semicompatibility, and full-compatibility.