Quince (Cydonia oblonga mill.) breeding

Abstract

Quince, Cydonia oblonga Mill. is one of the most important pome fruit species in the Rosaceae family. The genus Cydonia is monospecific and includes only a single species. Quince is grown for both fruit production and rootstock, and pear scion cultivars. It is cultivated for fruit production all over the world but most of the production is around its origin. Its fruits are used both for fresh consumption and for industry such as jam, jelly, marmalade, canning etc. Quince rootstocks such as Quince A and Quince C provide dwarfing to pear scion cultivars. The cultivar breeding by intraspecific crossing is very limited, and mostly all the cultivars in the production are selections from either nature or backyards. There are a few quince germplasm resources in the world characterized phenotypically and by different molecular marker systems. There are also studies aiming to produce quince x apple and pear x quince intergeneric crosses for rootstock. Quince is highly sensitive to fire blight (Erwinia amylovora Burril) which is the most important problem in fruit and rootstock production. Although genomic resources are very limited for Cydonia, apple and pear genomic resources in genebanks can be used for genetic and molecular studies in quince. It is necessary to have a large germplasm collection from diverse countries and with segregating populations for economically-important characters to start genetic studies in quince. This will allow use of molecular tools in the future breeding programs in quince.