An Investigation of the Pollination Compatibility of some Sweet Cherry Cultivars on  Zard Daneshkada'

Sweet cherry (Prunus avium L.) is considered as one of the most important temperate zone fruits worldwide. It is an economical fruit with high demand because of its early ripening fruits that enter the market early in the season. Most sweet cherry cultivars are self-incompatible, not able to produce commercial fruit without being pollinated with a compatible pollinizer. In the present study, floweres of cv. Zarde Daneshkadea were hand pollinated using collected pollen from Sefid Rezaeieh, Napoleon, Abardeh, Bing, Shabestar cultivars as well as pollen from itself. The experiment was arranged in Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) with 6 treatments and 3 replicates. The pollen germination test of all the examined cultivars resulted in high germination percentages (>65%). Zarde Daneshkada, with zero percent fruit setting, was proved to be a self-incompatible cultivar. The cultivars, Shabestar, Sefid Rezaeieh and Napoleon were compatible with cv. Zarde Daneshkade, with fruit setting of 56.33%, 51.83% and 47.49%, respectively which were recommended as pollinizers for ‘Zarde Daneshkadea’. Bing and Abardeh cultivars showed to be mainly cross-incompatible with Zarde Daneshkadea as their fruit set percentages were 2 and 0.66, respectively.