Advances in fruit crop propagation in Brazil and worldwide – Apple trees

Abstract

Apple production has been an important economic activity worldwide. The wide dissemination and cultivation of apple trees in several regions of the world is due to the development of propagation techniques from its domestication to the present time. Apple trees can be propagated by seeds, restricted to the use in breeding programs, and multiplied by several methods of vegetative propagation, both for rootstocks and apple scion cultivars. Considering the high technological level currently used in apple crop management, plant propagation plays a very important role in order to enable seedling production with high morphological quality and free of diseases, requiring new advances and propagation improvements in new releases of rootstocks and apple scions.