OVERVIEW OF PLUM BREEDING IN EUROPE

In Europe, the plum is one of the main fruit species, occupying an area of about 500,000 ha and ensuring production of about 3,000 million tones. The important countries regarding to plums (Serbia, Romania, Italy, Germany, Bulgaria etc.) recorded declines of production due mainly to viral diseases which destroyed the orchards and impaired the fruit quality. Therefore, these countries developed extensive breeding programs with the common objectives (productivity, fruit quality and resistance / tolerance to PPV) and specific objectives (late blooming, self-fertility, short growing period, different ripening times, spur fructification, resistance to diseases and frost). In the last 20 years 170 plum cultivars from these programs were released (Romania 38 cvs., Germany 28 cvs., Belarus 15 cvs., Serbia 14 cvs., Italy 13 cvs., Sweden 12 cvs., Bulgaria 11 cvs., Republic of Moldova 10 cvs., Latvia 9 cvs., France 6 cvs., United Kingdom 3 cvs., Czech Republic 3 cvs. and Norway 1 cv.).