ISHS Acta Horticulturae 423: II Workshop on Pollination
PREFACE |
| Author: | S.J. Wertheim |
| Abstract:
Most fruit-tree cultivars need cross pollination for adequate fruit set, and, therefore, fruit growers are keen to get information on flowering periods and the pollen suitability of the cultivars they intend to plant. For that reason, researchers since long have been crossing cultivars and assessing flowering periods. Although there always was some exchange of information on these matters between individual researchers, at the end of the seventies it was felt necessary to convert these contacts into a more organized collaboration. The reasons were the work load caused by the never ending number of crossings that had to be made, because of the continuous change in cultivars (apple, pear, plum, cherry) planted by growers, and the time-consuming assessment of flowering periods for many years. Furthermore, the reduction of staff in many countries warranted cooperation. It was felt that in this way the pollination work could be done more efficiently and even more information could be provided to growers. In 1981, a small informal pollination working group was founded coordinated by the undersigned and with the help of Mr. H.F. Ermen (National fruit Trials, Brogdale, UK) as the data collector. Besides participants from the UK and The Netherlands, researchers from Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and Switzerland joined the group. All sent the results of their crossings to the data collector at first in Brogdale and later to Wilhelminadorp, where a computerized data-base was made. Regularly each participant obtained an updated print-out. In the course of the years, colleagues from other countries (France, Italy, Mexico) joined in. In 1986, a meeting was organized where pollination methods, data recording, and the way of interpretation of the crossing results and the data on overlap in flowering periods were standardized (see the introductory paper for the data-base at the back of this volume). A second meeting followed in 1995 in Leuven (Belgium) jointly organized by Prof. Dr. J. Keulemans from the Catholic University of Leuven and staff members of the Research Station for Fruit Growing at Wilhelminadorp (NL). The International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS) kindly permitted to publish the proceedings of the workshop as a volume of ‘Acta Horticulturae’. The present volume not only contains the papers and posters presented in ‘Leuven’ but also a print-out of the data-base and an overview of the flowering phenology of four fruit crops in some European countries. The board of the ISHS is now considering the idea of converting the informal working group on pollination into a formal group, and, if so, in what form. | |
