SOUR CHERRY (Prunus cerasus L.)

The work on sour cherry breeding in the Institute commenced concurrently in 1960, at the same time with sweet cherry breeding. The objective of this work is developing new cultivars with pronounced self-fertility and resistance to causal agents of economically most serious pests and diseases. Newly developed cultivars should exhibit the following properties: large, high quality fruits with dark red or light red skin, favorable flesh ratio, dark red or colorless juice that does not bleed at separation from the stalk, i.e. they should be suitable for mechanized harvesting. Newly developed dessert cultivars should be suitable for freezing and industrial processing as well.