Fruitculture Research Institute

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About the institute

The NARIC Fruitculture Research Institute founded on 1st January 2014 is the legal successor of Research Stations located in Budapest, Érd, Cegléd and Fertőd of the Horticultural Research Institute’s Fruit Growing Department founded in 1950. Main activities of the Research Institute are to bred and naturalist stone fruit, shell fruit, soft fruit species and rootstocks as well as to adapt orchard systems among Hungarian climate conditions, to examine fruit sites for the new orchards. Our main breeding aims are production safety, increasing tolerance / resistance to diseases and pests and to produce fruits having outstanding taste, aroma and market value. The breeding programs started at foundation of the Institute are helped by biotechnological laboratories and ex-situ gene bank collections, where more thousands of accessions collected from Carpatian Basin are maintained. As results of the breeding work 25 sweet cherry cultivars, 12 tart cherry cultivars, 20 apricot cultivars, 8 European plum cultivars, 8 Persian walnut cultivars, 6 almond cultivars, 6 European chestnut cultivars, 2 hazelnut cultivars, 10 strawberry cultivars, 7 raspberry cultivars, 4 blackberry cultivars, 2 black and 2 red currant cultivars and 1 black chokeberry cultivars as well as 20 rootstock cultivars have been registered on the National Variety List. Furthermore, value of our breeding work is increased by nine cultivars had been patented in the territory of European Union and other four cultivars in the territory of Hungary.

Beside of cultivated fruit species breeding and comparative studies of annual flower species propagated by seeds and rose cultivars are running on the Department of Floriculture. Today there are approx. 110 registered annual flower cultivars and 229 rose cultivars from our breeding program in the production.

The results, are created by the researchers, are disseminated during the growers meetings more times yearly. The researchers take place in the Hungarian and international scientific life actively, they publish their results in the scientific books, newspapers and magazines for growers.

We have strong relationships with Research Institutes and companies in all countries having important fruit growing in the European Union, as well as in the United States of America, Chile, Croatia, China and Japan. There is a keen interested in our cultivars not just in Hungary, but in some European counties.

Our results are from trials of Research Stations and fruit sites with special ecological conditions, which confirm statement of prof. Mátyás Mohácsy made in 1957, that “The trial is the base of more – better fruit growing”.

Fruit Culture Research  and Development Institute  of Fertőd
Managing Director:
Dr. Dénes Ferenc

The first predecessor of the research institute is considered the Esterházy plant breeding plantation founded in 1910. Its direct predeces­ sor was the institute founded by Porpáczy Aladár after World War II. The research institute  is  the  oldest in Hungary.  Its activity covers the  breeding and maintenance of genetic stocks and the  creation of  the  super elite propagation material of the following species: strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, black currant, red currant, elderberry and rowan berry. As  a result of the breeding work,  the institute has 17 recognized varieties  and 33 acclimatized ones. For almost each soft fruit species, they elaborated a virusfree propagation technology of meristem culture with heat treatment. With a view to improving  the efficiency of development work, they apply in vitro methods like embryo cultures or the induction of polyploids or mutants, and they take part in experiments to  create transgenic strawberry and raspberry not sensitive to fungal diseases.