Performance of Romanian plum cultivars in the agro-environmental conditions of Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Successful plum production requires cultivars well adapted to the specific growing conditions in the area of production. Due to the interaction between environment and genotype, it is very important to evaluate the agronomical and pomological performance of all newly introduced cultivars. The current study aimed to describe the performance of five Romanian cultivars introduced in the agroenvironmental conditions of Plovdiv, Bulgaria. ‘Pitestean’, ‘Roman’, ‘Romanta’, ‘Carpatin’ and ‘Tita’ were planted in 2013 in a collection orchard at the Fruit Growing Institute and their phenological stages flow, spring frost resistance, fruit quality and trees productivity were studied for the period 2016-2021. ‘Pitestean’ was the latest flowering cultivar. In the region, its full flowering phenophase (BBCH 65) occurred 26 days after Stanley. The most severe frost damages in 2019 and 2020 were recorded for ‘Roman’ 42% and 96%, respectively. In these two years, ‘Tita’ showed a very good spring frost resistance and its percentage of damaged flowers was lower than the damages recorded for the standard. ‘Romanta’ provided very high productivity. ‘Tita’ and ‘Pitestean’ cvs. provide qualitative large fruits and an excellent productivity in the environmental conditions of the Plovdiv region. Taking into account the combination of important for the fruit producers characteristics ‘Tita’, ‘Romanta’ and ‘Pitestean’ are suitable for expanding and diversifying the list of cultivars grown. These cultivars could be recommended for introduction in the Bulgarian plum production orchards.