Performance of F1 pineapple hybrids selected for early fruiting

Y. K. Chan and H. K. Lee

 Abstract

The performance of five pineapple F1 hybrids selected for early bearing were evaluated with three standard cultivars. The results showed that two of the hybrids, viz. A25-34 and A54-47, were early maturing and fruit were harvested 2 weeks ahead of the standard cultivar Gandul. The primary difference between early and late genotypes arose from the period for fruit development after inflorescence emergence (‘red-heart’). This ranged from 94–97 days for early genotypes to 112–113 days for late genotypes. There was not much difference in the time between ‘forcing’ (application of flower hormone) to emergence of inflorescence. All genotypes flowered 30–34 days after hormoning. There was a linear relationship between fruit weight and plant weight for all, but one of the genotypes – A04-16. This genotype was unique because it had the highest mean fruit weight but the smallest plant resulting in a very high fruitto-plant weight ratio of 0.60. There is good scope for reduction of crop cycle time with this genotype because it was not necessary to extend the growing period to get large plants for production of economic-sized fruit. Two other genotypes, viz. A25-34 and A12-45 that showed a ‘flat’ gradient in the regression of fruit on plant weights, also appeared to have potential for early harvesting. The increase in fruit size after a certain time was marginal compared with the increase in plant size and therefore, the growing period in the field may be reduced.

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