Oriental Pear Breeding for High Fruit Quality and Adaptation to Subtropical Lowland in Taiwan

The breeding objective of pear is to develop varieties with high fruit quality but low chilling requirement for table use. Hybridizations of 9 combinations started in 1976 were made from a native, very low-chilling required variety 'Hungshan' and 7 introduced varieties with high-chilling requirement but high fruit quality. Hybrid progenies were planted with a highly dense spacing of 1M×4M at TARI's experimental orchard which is about 100M above sea level. Five hybrid progenies with early maturing, high fruit quality and low-chilling requirement in characters were selected out of more than 1,500 hybrid seedlings after 1 to 5 years juvernile period by the culture of single trunk training and heavy fertilization. Top-working of these selected progenies onto bearing 'Hungshan' trees was followed at various lowlands for preliminary evaluation. Data showed that the genetical deviation of fruit color and size appeared in random, however, fruit quality and date of sprouting and flowering appeared in the middle range of parents. Fruit maturing, on the contrary, earlier than both of parents. The sugar content of slected individuals is superior to their parents. A further evaluation is being carried out for fruit quality, yield and adaptation to various environments in different areas.