Qinguan
Bred in Shaanxi from Golden Delicious and Jiguan, it once covered 150,000 hectares of Chinese orchards
History
Qinguan (秦冠) was bred at the Research Institute of Pomology of Shaanxi Province1,2 from Golden Delicious and Jiguan, a Chinese variety1. China had begun planned cross-breeding of apples in the 1950s, and Wang and colleagues count Qinguan among the more influential varieties that work produced2. It was first approved in 1967, by a provincial appraisal in Shaanxi1.
It bore young, cropped heavily, adapted to many sites and kept well, so growers and buyers took to it, and it spread widely through the apple regions of central and western China; at its height it was grown on 150,000 hectares1. It won a second-class National Technology Invention Award, which Dong and colleagues described in 2020 as the highest national award yet won in Chinese fruit science1. In 2014 USDA put Qinguan, “a local variety”, at 7 per cent of China’s apple production, against 70 per cent for Fuji3.
Qinguan has also been a parent. In a survey of the 273 apple varieties bred in China between 1951 and 2019, it had given rise to seven, more than any other parent bred in China: among them Qinxing (1995), Qinyan (2000), Ruiyang (2015), a cross with Fuji, and Qinmi (2016), a cross with Honeycrisp, as well as a bud sport, Jingning 1 (2013)1. The survey’s authors recommend it as a parent for breeding productive and resistant varieties1.
The fruit
The fruit is large and purplish red, and it keeps well1.
Growing
Besides bearing early and cropping heavily, Qinguan is cold-hardy1. In field comparisons of 25 cultivars grown in China, most were susceptible to the fungus Marssonina coronaria and to the apple pathotype of Alternaria alternata, but three resisted both: Qinguan, Jiguan and Xiangyanghong5.
Where the sources disagree
Family tree
Parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, as the entries in the atlas record them.
- Qinguan China, by 1967
- Parent Golden Delicious United States, 1905
- Parent Grimes Golden United States, by 1804
- Parent Jiguan
- Parent Golden Delicious United States, 1905
Sources
- Pedigree analysis and breeding inspiration of apple cultivars in China (in Chinese), Zhidan Dong, Shangwei Song and others, Scientia Agricultura Sinica 53(21):4485–4496, 2020. Supports: Appendix table S1 of 273 apple cultivars bred in China, 1951–2019: Qinguan (秦冠), first approved in 1967 by a Shaanxi provincial appraisal, bred by the Research Institute of Pomology of Shaanxi Province from Golden Delicious × Jiguan, purplish red, large, late-ripening, cold-hardy and a good keeper; Golden Delicious (United States) × Jiguan (China) giving a late, storable, disease-resistant apple; early bearing, heavy cropping, adaptability and keeping made it popular with growers and consumers, and it spread greatly in the apple regions of central and western China, its area once reaching 150,000 ha; a National Technology Invention Award, second class, "the highest national award" so far won in Chinese fruit science; among the 37 parents that are Chinese landraces or derived cultivars, Qinguan gave rise to the most first-generation cultivars (7), among them Hangguan (1993), Qinxing (1995), Qinyan (2000), Runtai 1 (2004), the bud sport Jingning 1 (2013), Ruiyang (2015, with Fuji) and Qinmi (2016, with Honeycrisp); recommended as a parent for productive, resistant varieties.
- Fruit scientific research in New China in the past 70 years: apple (in Chinese), Jinzheng Wang, Zhenhai Han and others, Journal of Fruit Science 36(10):1255–1263, 2019. Supports: planned cross-breeding in China under way from the 1950s; Qinguan, bred by the Shaanxi fruit research institute, named first among the more influential new varieties it produced.
- Fresh Deciduous Fruit Annual: China (CH14062), USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Beijing, 2014-12-29. Supports: Fuji 70 per cent of China's apple production, and "Qinguan, a local variety", 7 per cent.
- Fresh Deciduous Fruit Annual: China (CH16056), USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, Beijing, 2016-11-01. Supports: Fuji, a late variety, over 70 per cent of China's apple production; "Early mature varieties, such as Gala and Qinguan, take up the remaining 30 percent".
- Resistance to Marssonina coronaria and Alternaria alternata apple pathotype in the major apple cultivars and rootstocks used in China, Yan Li and others, HortScience 47(9):1241 (abstract), 2012. Supports: in field comparisons of 25 cultivars and 39 rootstocks, most cultivars grown in China susceptible or highly susceptible to both pathogens; "Only three cultivars, Qinguan, Jiguan, and Xiangyanghong, exhibited resistance to both pathogens".