Results of apple-tree breeding for fruits biochemical composition improvement

Breeding for creating apple varieties not only adaptive, perishable, high-yielding, with high commodity and consumer qualities of fruits, but also with fruits rich in sugar, ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and P-active substances has been conducted for about 50 years at the Russian Research Institute of Fruit Crop Breeding (VNIISPK). Apple varieties with the improved biochemical composition of fruit are briefly described in this article. The long-term study made it possible to identify 3 varieties among apple varieties of VNIISPK breeding that have high content of sugars in fruit including Blagodat — 13.3%, Vavilovskoye — 13.0 and Ministr Kisilev — 13.1%, with an average sugar content in 58 varieties — 10.6%. The best varieties by the content ofascorbic acid in fruits were Ivanovskoye — 19.5 mg/100 g, Veteran — 19.4, Nizkorosloye — 18.0 and Pepin Orlovsky — 15.3 mg/100 g. With an average content of P-active substances 364 mg/100g in 58 varieties the best varieties were Candil Orlovsky — 558, Orlovsky Pioner — 514, Pamyaty Khitrovo — 480 and Radost Nadezhdy — 474 mg/100 g. The long-term work has shown that by breeding it is possible to improve significantly the biochemical composition of the fruit in apple. The introduction of intensive orchards into production with apple varieties having high content of sugars, ascorbic acid and P-active substances gives an opportunity to increase the food and medicine value of fruits without additional costs.