Variation in Bloom Time in a Sour Cherry Germplasm Collection

Abstract

Bloom times were evaluated for seedlings from four full-sib and 14 open-pollinated families of sour cherry (Prunus cerasus L.). Time of anthesis for individual seedlings ranged over 17and 16-day periods in 1989 and 1990, respectively. In both years, most seedlings bloomed later than `Montmorency', the only commercially important sour cherry cultivar in the United States. `Pitic de Iasi', the parent of the latest-blooming family, is a natural interspecific hybrid between sour cherry and the cold-hardy Russian ground cherry (P. fruticosa Pall.). Hybridization between sour and ground cherry and intense selection pressure in the colder areas of the sour cherry habitat may have favored selection of the late-blooming character.