The cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus L.) tree selection

Cherry laurel (Prunus laurocerasus L.) has attracted attention because of many different usage such as fresh fruit production, processing material for medicinal and pharmacy industry. This study carried out some pomological, chemical and phenological properties of cherry laurel phenotypes to selection of the favorable phenotypes for cultivation. A total of 40 phenotypes were evaluated in the program, between the year 2008 and 2010 for three growing seasons. According to the searched literature, there is need to select good quality phenotype fruits for this specie. Therefore, this research is very important with this point. The data regarding tested pomological characteristics were evaluated by the modified weighed-ranked method. According to the results obtained, fruits weights of the phenotypes were between 0.82 and 5.22 g. Fruit firmness, soluble solid contents, titratable acidity and flesh/seed ratio of phenotypes varied from 203 to 523 g/mm, 12.46 to 24.40, 0.12 to 0.62 and 2.39 to 20.72% respectively. Based on the result of this evaluation, ten phenotypes were selected as superior phenotypes with high scores. The taste was very good and astringency was very low for these phenotypes. Phenological characteristics, such as first flowering, full flowering and end of flowering were observed firstly for Phenotype 35 (corresponding 17 to 20 March, 21 to 27 March and 01 to 06 April respectively) and lastly for Phenotype 31 (corresponding 05 to 10 April, 13 to 16 April and 20 to 23 April respectively). In the selected phenotypes, the flower number per cluster and fruit number per cluster ranged from 31.38 to 44.63 flowers and from 5.49 to 16.84 fruits respectively. Selected superior phenotypes should be used in future breeding programmes and should be propagated for cultivation