Studies on interspecific hybridization in genus Prunus

The present investigations entitled “Studies on interspecific hybridization in genus Prunus” were conducted in Department of Fruit Science, Dr Y S Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry, nauni, Solan.two late maturing high chill cultivars namely July Elberta, Redhaven and two low chill early maturing cultivars tropic Beauty, Partap and plum cv. Santa Rosa were included for controlled hybridization studies. time and duration of flowering in cultivars studied varied a great deal. Duration of flowering extended from 16 to 30 days. Low chill peaches did not synchronise in flowering with plum cv. Santa Rosa.. The highest fruit set (71.84 %) was observed in cross combination ‘Partap × Santa Rosa’. the minimum fruit set (23.60 %) was recorded in cross combination ‘Redhaven × Santa Rosa’. Maximum fruits dropped in ‘Redhaven × Santa Rosa’ and minimum in Partap × Santa Rosa cross-combination. the maximum numbers of hybrid seeds obtained were 146 from cross- combination ‘July Elberta × Santa Rosa’ and minimum of 33 were recovered from ‘Partap × Santa Rosa’ cross-combination. considerable success has been achieved via attempting inter-specific crosses as evident from moderate to high fruit set.