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UK National Fruit Collections | |
The UK Network for Malus hosted a meeting at the National Fruit Collections on 13th September to view and discuss ‘at risk’ Malus cultivars and to consider characterisation and identification. Members who hold ‘at risk’ cultivars in their collections and key members of regional groups were invited to attend. Eighteen delegates attended the meeting, many of them brought fruit samples.
The programme included a walk through the National Apple Collection with the curator, Dr Emma-Jane Lamont looking at cultivars of interest to the parties. New additions to the observation plot were viewed including Sykehouse Russet and a collection of Dr. Harvey trees from a number of sources. Following the walk all delegates had the opportunity to view fruit of the 21 potentially ‘at risk’ varieties supplied by collection holders throughout the UK. We have since been verifying these using published descriptions and provenance information.
The afternoon was focused on a presentation on descriptors given by Dr Alison Lean, Research Fellow in PVR, followed by a stimulating talk by Dr Barrie Juniper, Oxford University. Following the discussion regarding characterisation of Malus cultivars it has been agreed that a list of minimum descriptors for characterisation of Malus should be drawn up from an amalgamation of Bultitude’s book ‘Apples’ and publications of the European Cooperative Programme for Crop Genetic Resources Networks (ECP/GR). Preliminary discussions took place on identification with the expert opinion of Dr Joan Morgan. This gave the delegates the opportunity to discuss verification of some problem apple varieties brought with them. These were compared with selected cultivars chosen from the National Apple Collection.
Crown copyright, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, prepared by Imperial College at Wye. This material may be reproduced without formal permission or charge for personal or in-house use.
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nfc@ic.ac.uk | Last updated 23 November 2001 |