The World of Apples

Apple varieties, France

Florina

Selected at Angers in 1977 from progenies sent from America; Europe's reference scab-resistant apple in the 1980s–90s

History

Florina was bred at INRA’s fruit research station at Angers1,3. There Luc Decourtye took up breeding for resistance to scab, following an American programme that had begun in the 1940s after resistance turned up by chance in second-generation seedlings of the small-fruited Malus floribunda3. That programme, started in 1945 by J. R. Shay at Purdue University and L. F. Hough at the University of Illinois, became the cooperative programme of Purdue, Rutgers and Illinois known as PRI; by repeated crossing it carried a dominant gene for resistance, Vf, from M. floribunda 821 into apples of good quality2. Florina was selected at Angers in 1977 from progenies that Shay had sent in 19613, and it was released that year2.

Its recorded parents are Jonathan and PRI 612-1, a selection of the PRI programme2, and SNP data confirm Jonathan as one of them4. The National Fruit Collection describes its ancestry as complex, involving Rome Beauty, Golden Delicious, Starking, Simpsons Giant Limb and Jonathan1. A 1985 paper on Florina by Lespinasse and colleagues gave a registered trade mark beside its cultivar name3.

In 1992 Crosby and colleagues found it promising in Europe and its first trials in the United States encouraging2. According to Lespinasse, it was the reference among the new scab-resistant apples in Europe through the 1980s and 1990s, and it let growers halve their fungicide and insecticide sprays3. French growers, who then relied on Golden Delicious, the red Delicious types and Granny Smith, took little interest: a two-coloured apple, it lacked the regular shape and long keeping of Golden Delicious3. It spread instead in organic orchards, in countries that led in reducing pesticides, such as Switzerland and northern Italy, and in Hungary and Romania, where pesticides cost more than in western Europe3. Its results, with the growth of similar programmes abroad, led an Angers nurseryman, Guy Ligonnière, to seek a breeding partnership with INRA in the mid-1980s3.

The fruit

At the National Fruit Collection the fruit is medium-sized and rounded, with a whitish-yellow ground partly striped and mottled red, little russet and yellowish flesh, and it tends to be “rather tart and acid”1. A report on a trial at Princeton, Kentucky, describes large, red-striped fruit with an aromatic, sweet and spicy flavour; there in 2004–06 it averaged about 200 grams, with 13.9 per cent soluble solids5.

At Brogdale in Kent it starts to flower around 2 May and is picked in mid-October1. In Kentucky it was picked on average on 19 September, and the report says it keeps into January5.

Growing

Florina carries the Vf gene for resistance to scab2,3. Lespinasse adds that it tolerates the rosy apple aphid and is little susceptible to fire blight3, and the Kentucky report describes a vigorous tree, immune to scab and resistant to cedar apple rust5. In 1992 no new race of the scab fungus had overcome Vf2, but by 2007 Lespinasse reported that a virulent race was doing so3. It is diploid4.

Where the sources disagree

  • Flavour. The National Fruit Collection finds the fruit rather tart and acid1; the Kentucky trial describes it as aromatic, sweet and spicy5.
  • Size. The fruit is medium-sized at Brogdale1 and large in Kentucky5.

Family tree

Parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, as the entries in the atlas record them.

Jonathan Florina
Where Florina came from. The lines lead to its parents: Jonathan (United States).

Sources

  1. Florina (accession 1978 - 342), National Fruit Collection, Brogdale, Kent (Defra). Supports: "Complex parentage involving Rome Beauty, Golden Delicious, Starking, Simpsons Giant Limb and Jonathan"; "A scab resistant variety raised at the Station de Recherches d'Arboriculture Fruitiere, Angers, France"; "Fruits tend to be rather tart and acid"; a dessert apple; fruit medium and globose, ground colour whitish yellow, over-colour red (low to medium), striped or mottled, russet low, flesh yellowish; 10% flowering on 2 May and picking in mid-October at the collection.
  2. Breeding Apples for Scab Resistance: 1945–1990, J. A. Crosby, J. Janick, P. C. Pecknold, S. S. Korban, P. A. O'Connor, S. M. Ries, J. Goffreda and A. Voordeckers, Fruit Varieties Journal 46(3):145–166, American Pomological Society, 1992. Supports: the breeding programme begun in 1945 by J. R. Shay at Purdue University and L. F. Hough at the University of Illinois, which became the cooperative programme of Purdue, Rutgers and Illinois known as PRI; scab resistance from Malus floribunda 821 conferred by a dominant gene named Vf and carried into high-quality apples by repeated crossing (p. 146); Table 2 (p. 163): Florina released in France in 1977 from Jonathan × PRI 612-1, with Vf resistance from M. floribunda 821; Florina "appears promising in Europe and initial evaluations in the U.S. are encouraging", and the Vf gene not yet overcome by virulent new races of the fungus (p. 161).
  3. Innovation variétale : démarche partenariale engagée avec les pépiniéristes producteurs de plants de pommiers (in French), Yves Lespinasse, INRA Angers, Innovations Agronomiques 1:123–127, HAL (CC BY 4.0), 2007. Supports: Luc Decourtye's programme at the Angers fruit station to breed scab-resistant apples, following American work begun in the 1940s after scab resistance was found by chance in F2 descendants of the small-fruited Malus floribunda; Florina selected in 1977 from part of the progenies sent in 1961 by J. R. Shay; Vf resistance from M. floribunda clone 821; tolerant of the rosy apple aphid and little susceptible to fire blight; the reference among the new scab-resistant varieties in Europe through the 1980s and 1990s, and the variety on which advisers and growers had gathered the most data; halving growers' fungicide and insecticide treatments; of little interest to French growers, who relied on Golden Delicious, the red Delicious and Granny Smith, since as a two-coloured apple it lacked the regular shape and long keeping of Golden Delicious; grown mainly in organic orchards, in Switzerland and northern Italy, and in Hungary and Romania, where pesticides cost more than in western Europe; its results, with the growth of other programmes abroad, leading the Angers nurseryman Guy Ligonnière to seek a partnership with INRA from the mid-1980s; Vf resistance now being overcome by a virulent race (Durel and others, 2007); the 1985 paper on it giving a registered trade mark beside the cultivar name (reference list).
  4. Using whole-genome SNP data to reconstruct a large multi-generation pedigree in apple germplasm, Hélène Muranty and others, BMC Plant Biology 20:2, with Additional files 1 and 6 (Tables S1 and S5), 2020. Supports: Florina and Jonathan a parent–offspring pair with no Mendelian errors, oriented by its recorded parentage, PRI 612-1 and Jonathan, so that Jonathan is confirmed as a parent; Florina "known" as an offspring of Jonathan (text); Florina diploid, dated 1977 (Table S1).
  5. Apple Cultivar Performance (HortFact-3006), Joe Masabni and Dwight Wolfe, University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension, Horticulture Department, 2007-04. Supports: a trial at the University of Kentucky Research and Education Center, Princeton, Kentucky, planted in 1997 and assessed in 2004–2006; Florina on CG.10: average harvest 19 September, fruit weight 7.1 oz, 13.9% Brix; "Large, red striped fruit with an aromatic sweet/spicy flavor. Vigorous tree. Immune to scab and resistant to Cedar apple rust. Ripens mid September. Keeps into January.".

All 201 varieties from France