Published 2019-04-19
Abstract
‘US Early Pride’ is a very low-seeded mandarin hybrid that that was released, under patent, by the USDA in 2009. ‘US Early Pride’ was produced by irradiation of ‘Fallglo’ budwood in 1989. Other than seed count, ‘US Early Pride’ has proven to be essentially identical to ‘Fallglo’. Seed counts in ‘US Early Pride’ are typically less than two per fruit, and frequently the fruit are completely seedless, compared to ‘Fallglo’ which can contain as many as forty seeds per fruit. Industry interest in ‘US Early Pride’ is evidenced in the fact that it has been the most propagated specialty fruit in Florida in recent years. Early on there was a question regarding the need for a pollinizer for ‘US Early Pride’, and if so, what would be suitable pollinizers? We have conducted three experiments to address pollination requirements of ‘US Early Pride’. To date, results suggest that ‘US Early Pride’ does not require an alternate source of pollen, but may benefit from it. Several growers have reported that ‘US Early Pride’ can suffer from a dieback problem. The dieback is not unique to ‘US Early Pride’, it also seen in ‘Fallglo’.