Performance of Apple Cultivars in the 1999 NE-183 Regional Project Planting. I. Growth and Yield Characteristics

Abstract

A multi-site experiment to evaluate the performance of 23 apple ( Malus × domesticaBorkh.) cultivars was established in 1999. The purpose was to evaluate new and promising cultivars and breeding selections in a range of geographical and climatic areas within North America. All trees were propagated on M.9T337 and minimally pruned to encourage early bearing. ‘Pinova’ and ‘Cripp’s Pink’ had the most flower clusters in the first year after planting. At the end of the fifth growing season ‘Cripp’s Pink’ trees were among the largest while NY 65707-19 and ‘Minnewashta’ were the smallest. CQR10T17 and ‘Golden Delicious’ had the greatest cumulative yield. ‘Pinova’ had the highest yield efficiency and highest mean number of fruit per year. The largest fruit were produced on NY 75907-49. Three breeding selections NJ 90, NY 65707-19 and NY 75907-49 had pre-harvest fruit drop in excess of 20%. ‘Chinook’ had the heaviest annual crop load but also had the smallest fruits. ‘Minnewashta’ and ‘Silken’ were the earliest blooming cultivars while ‘Runkel’ bloomed the latest. Across all sites the average days from bloom to harvest was 184 days for ‘Cripp’s Pink’ making it the latest cultivar to mature and probably not suited to be grown in more northern regions of the continent.