Horticulture

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The Horticulture Programme is guided by the objective to collect and maintain different types and cultivars of temperate fruit plant sand rootstocks in the research farm for use as mother plants (for released cultivars) and future research for the unreleased new varieties.

Since 1969, horticulture research was one of the main activities of the centre. Among the horticulture crops the main focus was on temperate fruits. Thus, the centre has many collections of germplasm on temperate fruit plants and all are maintained on-station

Germplasms on temperate fruit plants of pome fruits, stone fruits, soft fruits and nuts are maintained in the centre. In addition, germplasm on different types of rootstocks are also maintained in the centre. Under the pome fruits category, there are 33 varieties of apple, 13 varieties of pear and 11 varieties of persimmon. There are three types of stone fruits in the research farm. They are peach, plum, nectarine and apricot. There are 9 varieties of peach, 3 varieties of plum and 5 varieties of apricot. Under soft fruits category, there are 13 varieties of cherry and 6 varieties of berries including two varieties of strawberry. Under the nuts category, there are 24 varieties of walnut and 6 varieties of hazelnut. With regard to rootstocks, there are four varieties of apple rootstock (M9, MM106, MM111 and Ringo), one variety for stone fruits (St. Julian), two varieties for pear (Quince and local pear) and one variety (colt) for cherry.

There is also a vegetable component included in the Horticulture Programme. The adaptation trial for the winter chili and some other nutritive vegetable were the main focus for the vegetable component in Horticulture Programme.