Achievements in the certification of plum planting material in Serbia

Abstract

Healthy and true-to-type plant planting material is essential for successful agricultural production. Vegetatively propagated species, such as fruits, are particularly endangered as many pathogens are transmitted through this type of propagation. The certification program for the production of fruit planting material in Serbia started in the mid-2000s. This was the pioneer effort in the country to establish the program and obtain plant material that satisfied all international and newly established national plant material production standards. Since 2005, a total of 26 plum cultivars were introduced into the program. The certification was based on the evaluation of the candidate clones and included the analysis of plants for the presence of prescribed pathogens and their pomological observations. As a result, a nuclear stock of 25 plums, including domestic, autochthonous, and foreign cultivars with a total number of 155 plants was obtained at the Fruit Research Institute, Čačak.