ASSESSMENT OF THE QUALITY OF FRUITS OF PROMISING FORMS OF WALNUT FROM LOCAL SEED POPULATIONS OF THE KRASNODAR REGION AND BELGOROD REGION

Recently, the task of updating the walnut assortment with new adaptive and high-quality varieties of domestic breeding has been solved, since foreign varieties cannot fully realize their biological potential in the conditions of the North Caucasus. In order to solve the issue of import substitution, it is necessary to create competitive, highly productive varieties with lateral fruiting, adaptive to unfavorable factors. At the same time, an extremely important characteristic of the variety is the quality of the fruit. The article presents the results of research on the search for promising forms of walnut. During the route trips, a preliminary assessment of the studied samples was carried out for the presence of lateral fruiting and fruit load, as a result of which 11 promising forms were identified for assessing the morphometric characteristics and quality of the fruits. All 11 selected forms of walnut are valuable for breeding and can serve as sources of economically useful traits (lateral fruiting, large fruit, high percentage of kernel yield, light, well-filled kernel, thin shell). Forms № 1, № 3, № 4, № 5, № 6, № 7, №. 8, № 10 can be considered the most promising in terms of the complex of phenotypic characteristics of fruits. These samples have an average (№ 1, № 5, № 7, № 8) and high (№ 3, № 4, № 6, № 11) percentage of kernel yield, good kernel extractability, kernel completion and can be used in breeding work, such as sources of economically valuable traits.