Ten Years ago, Agroscope Changins-Wädenswil ACW has started an new apricot breeding program, with the main objective to keep the excellent gustative quality of the cultivar Luizet and to develop new varieties characterized with an excellent internal and external quality, with a lower sensitivity to transportation and handling and with a slower post-harvest evolution. The ACW breeding program has been extended since 2006 and new breeding objectives has been defined, like late flowering, late ripening and resistance against important apricot diseases. Molecular studies have been conducted using particular progeny families and genetic maps have been created allowing a better understanding of the mechanism of resistance to these diseases. In order to achieve these objectives, 1000 new hybrids are created each Year. The main part will be irremediably eliminated and only few favorites will be selected and commercialized by our partner VariCom.

 

On the contrary to apples, only few new interesting pear varieties are proposed to the producers. The objective of the Agroscope Changins-Wädenswil ACW pear breeding program is to develop new varieties with high flavor, bicolored or russeted, tolerant to the fire blight and with a regular production. The commercialization and marketing of these new varieties is performed by our partner VariCom.

  http://www.varicom.ch