Studies on Cross Pollination between Manfaloty Pomegranate and Some Evaluated Import Cultivars

Aims: The present study was conducted in three successive seasons, to evaluate five pomegranate cultivars namely, Eversweet, Sweet, Aca, Wonderful and Blackberry in two seasons followed by one season to achieve crosses between the Manfaloty and these evaluated cultivars.
Methodology: Vegetative, flowering, physical and chemical parameters were measured for the new tested cultivars. Then hybridization was conducted between Manfaloty and the new evaluated cultivars using tested viable pollen grains and the resulted fruits from these crosses were physically and chemically evaluated.
Results: Sweet cultivar super passed the remaining cultivars in vegetative parameters (leaves number, shoot length and number of internodes). Meanwhile, Aca cultivar revealed the lowest value for vegetative growth parameters.
Eversweet cultivar showed the highest number of both hermaphrodite and male flowers. Moreover, Sweet cultivar showed earlier date for flowering; however, the Wonderful recorded lately date of flowering. Chemically, Blackberry cv. Super passed the rest of the evaluated cultivar in anthocyanin content followed by Aca, wonderful, Sweet and finally Eversweet. On the other hand, tannins was highest in Aca cv. followed by Blackberry, wonderful and both of Sweet and Eversweet. A vice versa trend for tannins was observed for total sugar. Total soluble solids / acidity ratio was highest in Sweet cultivar and low with Blackberry cultivars. Sweet cv. had a soft seeded, while semi soft seed was characterized by Eversweet cv.; however, Wonderful, Aca and Blackberry have hard, semi hard and very hard, respectively. Yield was highest within Aca and Wonderful cvs in both of the studied seasons. Genetically, Blackberry cultivar was far from the studied cultivars. Moreover, Wonderful cultivar showed a lower genetic similarity Aca, Sweet and Eversweet (0.28, 0.3 3 and 0.43, respectively).
Before achieving of crosses, viability of pollen grains of the five evaluated pomegranate were tested, it was differ from one cultivar to another, Wonderful cv. showed the highest pollen grains, followed by sweet cv. Aca and Eversweet; while, Blackberry occupy the last order in pollen grains viability.
Conclusion: A wide variation of pollen grains effect within physical and chemical fruit characteristics resulted from crosses between Manfaloty and these cultivars was observed.