Selection of Superior Trees for Larger Fruit and High Productivity in Sorbus commixta Hedl.

The objectives of this study, an analysis of the variation for leaf and fruit characteristics among the selected ten populations of Sorbus commixta Hedl. could be used for the conservation of gene resources and could provide information to superior trees selection. The results obtained from this study can be summarized as follows; Approximately, the Mt. Sungin population at Ulleung island showed larger values in overall characteristics and populations. On the other hand, Mt. Halla population at Jeju island showed the smaller values of the overall characteristics and populations. ANOV A tests showed that there were statistically significant differences in all leaf characteristics among the populations as well as individual trees within populations. But, for fruit characteristics, differences were statistically significant only among the populations. Cluster analysis using single linkage method based on leaf and fruit characteristics showed that ten selected populations of S. commixta in Korea could be clustered into three groups. Group I is Mt. Sungin at Ulleung island, Group II is Mt. Halla at Jeju island, and Group III comprises Osan, Mt. Kaji, Mt. Duckyoo, Mt. Balwang, Mt. Sobaek, Mt. O-dae, Mt. Jiri, and Mt. Taebaek. The selection level based on major agronomic traits, which are the Number of Fruit per Fruiting Lateral(NFL) over 50, and Fruit Length(FL) and Width(FW) over 10 mm, and Weight of 100 Fruit(WFI00) over 66 g, was applied on 100 sample trees, and five trees were selected. The selection effects from selected trees in NFL, FL, FW, and WF100 were evaluated as 132%, 151 %, 142%, and 264% compared to the mean of those 100 sample trees, respectively. Especially, Ulleung 2 showed excellent values that NFL and WFI00 were 95, and 69 g, respectively, suggesting a promising new cultivar for larger fruit and high productivity.