Evaluation of some qualitative and quantitative characteristics of fruits in a number of apple genotypes obtained from crosses between Red Spur and Golab-e-Kohanz cultivars

Increasing product marketability and introduction of new cultivars for fresh consumption of apple is the world's most important breeding objectives. In this study, the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the genotypes from cross between Red Spur and Golab-e-Kohanz apple cultivars were evaluated. A total of 19 traits including fruit attributes (firmness, fruit weight,...) and the tree traits (trunk circumference, flowering time,...) were evaluated for two consecutive years. Results of simple correlation analysis showed positive and negative correlations between some important characteristics such as fruit weight, diameter and length, ratio of sugars to acids, acidity (pH), flowering and maturity time and the time of leaf abscission in the fall. Some attributes such as the time of leaf abscission, fruit color, flowering time, titrable acids, annual growth of shoots, the ratio of sugar to acid and fruit weight showed the highest variation coefficients. While, the attributes including the fruit length to diameter ratio, total soluble solids, fruit diameter, pH of fruit juice and the maturation time had the lowest variation coefficients. In general, most evaluated genotypes in terms of the maturity time were early to midseason. During the study, a number of early genotypes with good quality and quantity of yield were determined.