THE BREEDING OF APRICOT SPECIES FOR DIFFERENT TRAITS AND

FEATURES AT VALU LUI TRAIAN RESEARCH STATION, ROMANIA

Elena Topor*, Vasile Cociu**, Ramona Vasilescu*
*Research Station for Fruit Growing Constanta, Romania; eltopor@yahoo.com
**Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences Bucharest, Romania

Abstract

Research Station for Fruit Growing Constanta is located in the south-eastern part of Romania on the territory
among the Black Sea and Danube River. This land offers the best climate and soil conditions for apricot
culture. Therefore, many researches regarding the organization of the germplasm fund and many works for
apricot breeding for different traits and features were developed here. The organizing of germplasm fund
began since 1971 year with 225 apricot cultivars and a hybrids field with 1300 trees obtained from an apricot
breeding program initiated by scientist Vasile Cociu, with the collaboration of Rutgers University through
professor F.L. Hough. They were planted outside of the Research Station, just near Black Sea coast.
Beginning with 1982, the whole genetic fund of apricot has been established and developed in the frame of
the Valu lui Traian Research Station area, where the apricot breeding program has been continued till now.
For a long period, the number of apricot cultivars and selections increased to catch up with over 630. All of
them have been studied and many used as genitors for different traits and features. The main objectives of the
breeding program were: to prolong the harvest season, to increase fruit quality regarding the size and to
obtain fruits with a high sugar content, flesh firmness, good aroma, skin and flesh color, good taste, as well as
to improve the resistance to diseases such as Sharka or plum-pox virus, and to increase yields. To pursue
these objectives, we employed standard breeding techniques of cross pollination, self pollination and open
pollination. More than 150 cross combinations were made and more than 10000 seeds were obtained from
cross combinations and another 10000 from self and open pollination. More than 18000 hybrids were
subjected to evaluation in a hybrid orchard. Over 380 of the best phenotypes, genotypes and a control were
tested. From these, 12 new cultivars were released and other hybrids are in the testing period. The new
cultivars cover a ripening period from 10 July to 15 August. Each of them has high fruit qualities and is very
productive. The paper shows the features and traits of these new cultivars named: Traian, Tudor, Auras,
Danubiu, Cristal, Fortuna, Amiral, Augustin, Ceres, Histria and Euxin.

Keywords: apricot cultivars: Traian, Tudor, Auras, Danubiu, Cristal, Fortuna, Amiral, Augustin,
Ceres, Histria and Euxin

1.Introduction

Apricot breeding has been conducted by many researchers from the entire world where apricot tree finds
good conditions to grow. Researchers from Italy (Penonne, 1999; Nicotra et al., 2006; Guerriero et al., 2006),
France (Audergon et al., 1999), Spain (Egea et al., 1999), Greece (Syrgianidis et al., 1999), Bulgary
(Tsoneva, 1999), New Zealand (Hofstee, 1999), Slovak Republic (Benedicova, 2006), Witherspoon (1999)
and many others have their own apricot breeding programs. In Romania, the apricot breeding program started
in 1952, being under the leadership of Cociu (2006). He and many other researchers (Topor et al. 1997, 2006,
2007; Balan et al. 1997, 2006, 2007) worked for this program and released many cultivars including:
‘Traian,’ ‘Tudor,’ ‘Fortuna,’ ‘Auras,’ ‘Danubiu’, ‘Cristal’, ‘Amiral’, ‘Orizont’, ‘Augustin’, ‘Ceres’, ‘Histria’
and ‘Euxin’.
The purpose of this study is to show breeding of apricot species for different traits and features at Valu lui
Traian Research Station for Fruit Growing, Romania.

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2.Materials and methods

A good starting point for this work was the apricot gene bank which had more then 630 clones from Asia,
Europe and America. A collaboration program was established with Professor F. L. Hough from Rutgers
University, who also provided pollen for hybridization work.
The main objectives of the Romanian apricot breeding program were: 1) to prolong the harvest season; 2) to
increase fruit high quality regarding size, high sugar content, flesh firmness, good aroma, skin and flesh
color, good taste; 3) to improve the resistance to damage during transportation, to improve the resistance to
diseases such as Sharka or plum pox-virus; and 4) to improve yields.
To pursue these objectives, we employed standard breeding techniques of cross pollination, self pollination,
and open pollination. More than 150 cross combinations were made in Constanta. More than 10 000 seeds
were obtained from cross combinations and another 10000 from self and open pollination. More then 18 000
hybrids were subjected to evaluation in a hybrid orchard. The 380 best phenotypes, genotypes, and a control
were tested. From these, 12 new cultivars were released locally and another 11 hybrids were registered at the
State Institute for Variety Testing and Registration.
The comparative crops with the best selections were organized at Valu lui Traian Research Station with 20
trees for each one, grafted on seedlings Prunus armeniaca, planted at 4.5m/4.5 m distances.
‘Neptun’, that has medium ripening period from 13 to 15 July and good fruit qualities, was used as a control
cultivar.
The climatic conditions of the site are described below. The Research Station for Fruit Growing Constanta is
situated in a region which has a temperate-continental climate characterized by mild winters with the lowest
temperatures not descending below -17oC and where the summer is warm and very arid. The mean annual
precipitations are around 400 mm, from which 150-200 mm fall during the growing season (April-
September). The culture of apricot trees in this region has good results only under irrigated conditions. The
wind blows almost all the time of the year with different frequency and speed (between 7-10 m/s at 10 m
height) and is the most deleterious in spring during the blossoming period when the work of hybridizations is
being done.

3.Results and discussion

Under the climatic conditions of the region, the apricot flowering period has very large limits, going from the
first of March in earlier years (5.III.2002) till the end of April in the latest years (25.IV.2003), (Table 1).

Table1. The period of blooming and date maturity (limits of variation between years 1998-2006)

Period of blooming*
Date of maturity Open fertility Self fertility
Cultivar in the early in the late
(limits) % (average) % (average)
years** years***
Traian 5.III …… 25.IV 14.VI … 26.VI 31.1 0.3
Fortuna 3.III …… 24.IV 16.VI … 29.VI 49.7 33.6
Auras 8.III …… 27.IV 17.VI … 30.VI 78.3 71.7
Ceres 6.III …… 25.IV 16.VI … 28.VI 32.0 32.2
Cristal 6.III …… 25.IV 19.VI … 30.VI 85.0 44.1
Danubiu 5.III …… 26.IV 19.VI … 30.VI 55.3 40.2
Amiral 7.III …… 27.IV 26.VI … 5.VII 78.3 71.7
Orizont 7.III …… 26.IV 7.VII … 17.VII 81.5 65.7
Tudor 5.III …… 26.IV 21.VII …27.VII 30.3 0.3
Neptun-control 7.III …… 26.IV 13VII … 20.VII 55.7 42.3
Euxin 7.III …… 25.IV 6.VIII …14.VIII 78.0 52.7
Histria 8.III …… 26.IV 8.VIII … 15.VIII 41.8 35.0
Augustin 7.III …… 26.IV 10.VIII…17.VIII 73.8 47.1
* developing period 1998-2006, ** the earlier year 2002, *** the latest year 2003

During a 9-year study (1998-2006), the apricot trees flowered five years in March: 5.III.2002; 18.III.2001;
24.III.2004; 27.III.1999; 31.III.1998 and five years in April, in 3.IV.2000 and 2006; 12.IV.2005; 18.IV.1997
and 25.IV.2003, respectively. ‘Auras’ has the latest blooming period of the recently released cultivars. As a
result of temperature decrease to -3oC after the end of flowering, all the yield was destroyed in the year 2000.

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The cultivars: Fortuna, Traian, Tudor, Danubiu have a very early flowering period, while the cultivars:
Histria and Auras have a late flowering period. Whether the flowering presents a very large range with limits
from one year to another for the same cultivar (e.g. 5.III.2002-25.IV.2003 – ‘Traian’), the ripening period is
more limited, from 10 to 25 days.
All new cultivars homologated have high-quality fruits and a good productivity. The fruit weight averages
between 43.2 grams for ‘Cristal’ and 87.0 grams for ‘Amiral’, the stone percent/100 g fruit ranges between
7.8% for ‘Orizont’ and 4.6% for ‘Amiral’. ‘Fortuna’ had a total sugar content of 9.14 g% while ‘Euxin’ had
18.75 g%, all cultivars having values ranged between these two (Table 2).

Table 2. The average apricot yields and the fruit quality of new cultivars

Total acidity
Yields Fruit weight %stone Dry matter Total sugar
Cultivar g% malic
(t/ha) (g) /100 g of fruit Brix degrees %
acid
Traian 10.30 52.6 5.5 15.0 0.81 13.30
Fortuna 16.00 51.8 5.4 11.0 0.98 9.14
Auras 15.60 50.7 7.3 14.0 1.01 12.37
Cristal 14.90 43.2 6.5 13.0 0.89 11.31
Danubiu 15.90 53.0 6.3 12.0 1.07 10.25
Ceres 15.71 58.8 6.2 12.0 1.06 10.25
Amiral 16.00 87.0 4.6 16.0 0.98 14.50
Orizont 16.50 58.6 7.8 14.0 0.71 12.37
Tudor 14.49 48.1 6.5 18.0 0.88 16.63
Neptun 13.80 52.4 7.1 16.0 0.82 14.50
Euxin 14.80 66.8 6.5 20.0 0.84 18.75
Histria 17.30 63.9 6.0 18.0 1.13 16.63
Augustin 17.40 55.6 6.2 18.0 0.64 16.63

The fruit yields (as average values for five yeas) range between 10.3 t/ha for ‘Traian’ and 14.40 t/ha for
‘Augustin’, all new cultivars having values ranged between these two.
The harvesting season for the new cultivars is from very early which is mid June, till very late which is mid
August. This range for the old apricot cultivars assortment is shown in fig. 1.

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 Fig. 1. The harvesting position of the new apricot cultivars among the old cultivars in assortment

JUNE JULY AUGUST

10 15 20 25 30 5 10 15 20 25 31 5 10 15 20 25

NJA 42

TRAIAN

FORTUNA

AURAS

CRISTAL

DANUBIU

CERES

AMIRAL

C.R. 2-63

GOLDRICH

DACIA

ORIZONT

HARCOT

TUDOR

C.M.B.U.

NEPTUN

MAMAIA

UMBERTO

SIRENA

SULMONA

SELENA

OLIMP

EUXIN

LITORAL

HISTRIA

AUGUSTIN

old cultivars
new cultivars

Cultivar description and characterization

The new Romanian apricot cultivars are characterized as follows:

’Fortuna’: Sam no.1 x Mari de Cenad. Tree: strong vigor, spreading

appearance, bearing habit on spurs and one year old shoots, self fertility
33.6%, open fertility 49.7%, time of flowering early; Fruit: large size
(52 to 70 g), round, cavity depth intermediate, depressed apex, orange
skin color with intermediate red blush, orange flesh color, coarse texture
of flesh, firm, stone has medium size, non-adherence, sweet core; Time
of ripening: very early, 27 days before ‘Neptun’. Highly productive,
over 16 t/ha.

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 ’Auras’: Sam no.1 x Stark Early Orange. Tree: Strong vigor,
upright appearance, bearing habit on spurs prevalent, self fertility
71.7%, open fertility 78.3%, time of flowering late (the latest);
Fruit: medium/large size (55-65 g) triangular shape, cavity depth
deep, rounded apex, light orange skin color with intermediate red
blush, orange flesh color, intermediate texture of flesh, medium
firmness of flesh, stone has medium, non-adherence, strong
bitterness core, rich aroma, excellent eating quality; Time of
ripening: early, 25 days before ‘Neptun’. Highly productive, over 15
t/ha.

‘Cristal’: Sam no.1 x Mari de Cenad. Tree: Intermediate vigor,

upright appearance bearing habit on spurs and one year old shoots,
self fertility 44.1%, open fertility 85%, time of flowering
intermediate; Fruit: medium (42-46 g), oblong/rectangular shape,
cavity depth intermediate, rounded apex orange skin color with
slight red blush, orange flesh color, fine texture of flesh, medium
firmness, stone oblong shape, medium percent of flesh weight,
non-adherence, bitter core, rich aroma. Time of ripening: early, 23
days before ‘Neptun’. Very productive, over 14 t/ha.

‘Danubiu’: Sam no.1 x Mari de Cenad. Tree: Intermediate vigor

spreading appearance, bearing habit on one year old shoots, self
fertility 40.2%, open fertility 55.3%, time of flowering intermediate;
Fruit: medium/large size (48-55 g), oblong shape, cavity depth deep,
rounded apex, light orange skin color the blush mostly red in certain
years, orange flesh color, intermediate texture of flesh, firm, large
stone non-adherence, bitter core, rich aroma, excellent eating quality;
Time of ripening: early, 22 days before Neptun. Very productive,
over 15 t/ha.

‘Amiral’: Mari de Cenad x CR 24-12. Tree: strong vigor, upright

appearance, bearing habit on spurs and one year old shoots, self
fertility 71.7%, open fertility 78.3%, early season of flowering.
Fruit, very large fruit size (69-94 g), oblong shape, cavity depth
deep, rounded apex, orange skin color with intermediate red blush,
orange flesh color fine texture, firm flesh, stone elliptic shape, big
percent stone of fruit weight, nonadherence, bitter core, rich aroma,
excellent eating quality; Time of ripening: early, 14 days before
Neptun. High productive, over 16 t/ha.

‘Orizont’ : Mari de Cenad x CR 24-12.Tree: strong vigor,

upright appearance, bearing habit on spurs prevalent, self
fertility 65.7%, open fertility 81.5%, medium season of
flowering. Fruit: large size (55-67 g), oblong shape, cavity
depth deep, rounded apex, light orange skin color with
intermediate red blush, light orange flesh color, fine texture of
flesh, medium firmness, stone shape is oblong, the size is
medium to large, non-adherence sweet core, rich aroma,
excellent eating quality. Time of ripening: medium, 10 days
before Neptun. Highly productive, over 16.5 t/ha.

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 ‘Augustin’: Marculesti 9/5 x Sirena. Tree: intermediate vigor,
upright appearance, bearing habit on spurs and one year old
shoots, self fertility 47.1%, open fertility 76.3%, medium
season of flowering. Fruit: medium/large size (55.0-61.0 g),
oblong shape, cavity depth deep pointed apex, orange skin
color, with intermediate red blush, orange flesh color,
intermediate texture of flesh, medium firmness, rich aroma,
stone shape is round, the size is medium, non-adherence, sweet
core, rich aroma, excellent eating quality. Time of ripening:
late (the latest cultivar from apricot cultivated assortment into
Romania), 35 days after Neptun. Highly productive, over 17.0
t/ha.

‘Ceres’: NJA 17 x HR9P53. Tree: Intermediate vigor, upright

appearance, bearing habit on spurs prevalent and one year old
shoots, self fertility 32.0%, time of flowering early; Fruit: medium
size (43 to 68.8 g), round, cavity depth deep, rounded apex, orange
skin color with intermediate red blush, light orange flesh color,
medium firmness, medium texture of flesh, stone round shape,
medium percent of weight, non adherence, strong bitter core, rich
aroma. Time of ripening: early, 25 days before ‘Neptun’, very
productive, aver 14 t/ha.

‘Euxin’: ♀R30P62 (H 18/2 x H 17/2) x ♂R41P62 (H 16/7 x H

73/9). Tree: medium vigor, upright appearance, bearing habit on
spurs and one year old shoots, self fertility 78.0%; Fruit: medium
to large size (53.0-99.0 g), round shape, cavity depth, flattened
apex, orange skin color the blush red of 1/3 fruit, orange flesh color,
medium firmness, fine texture, rich aroma, stone round, non-
adherence, medium weight (3.2-4.8 g), sweet core, excellent eating
quality. Time of ripening: late, 31 days after ‘Neptun”. Productive,
over 14 t/ha average, in studied period.

‘Histria’: Worley’s peach x Sulmona. Tree: medium

vigor, upright appearance, bearing habit on spurs and one year old
shoots, self fertility 35.0% open fertility 41.8%. Fruit: round
shape, medium to large size (57.4-71.4 g), orange skin with red
blush on half of fruit, orange flesh color, medium firmness, coarse
texture of flesh, rich aroma, stone round shape, medium size,
lightly adherence of flesh, sweet core. Time of ripening: late, 33
days after ‘Neptun’. Very productive, between 14.8-17.3 t/ha.

‘Traian’: Viceroy x
N.J.A. 2. Tree: medium vigor, upright appearance, bearing habit
more spurs, self sterility (0.3%), open fertility 31.3%, time of
flowering early. Fruit: medium size (45.0-52.6 g), oblong shape,
cavity depth intermediate, round apex orange skin color with
intermediate red blush, orange flesh color, medium texture of flesh,
medium firmness, oblong stone shape, small to medium size (2.1-
3.4 g), non adherence, bitter core. Time of ripening: very early 31
days before ‘Neptun’.
The productivity is small to medium about 9 to 10 tones/ha.

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 ‘Tudor’: Viveroy x N.J.A.2. Tree: strong vigor, upright
appearance, bearing habit on spurs prevalent, self sterility (0.3%),
open fertility 30.3%, time of flowering early. Fruit: medium to
large size (40-64.6 g) oblong/rectangular shape, cavity depth
intermediate, rounded apex, orange skin color with the blush
mostly red in certain years, orange flesh color, firm, fine texture,
big stone, oblong shape, non adherence, bitter core. The
productivity is good about 14-15 t/ha. Time of ripening: medium,
5 days before ‘Neptun’.

All these cultivars were homologated in 1993-2007 period, thus in year 1993: Traian and Tudor;
year 2003: Auras, Cristal, Danubiu; year 2004: Fortuna, Orizont, Amiral, Augustin; year 2007: Ceres, Euxin,
Histria and we promote them for growers every year.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS for financial support in apricot breeding works from Agral Program (Contract
no. 3057/2001) and Biotech Program (Contract no. 4646/2004) financed by the Romanian Education
and Research Ministry.

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