The first experiences with cherry breeding at the VSUO in Holouvosy in the Czech Republic date back to the late 1960s. The main variety selected from this programme is Kordia, which in recent years has become one of the world's leading varieties in the medium-late ripening period, mainly due to its high fruit quality standards.
The primary objectives of the WSUO programme are cherry quality (size, texture and colour), resistance to cracking and rot, shelf life and plant productivity. MAS technologies are used in the breeding programme for the early selection of genotypes on several traits: self-fertility, spring frost resistance, drought and climate change tolerance and low chilling requirements.
WSUO, besides Kordia, has commercially propagated 28 cherry varieties. The best known are Early Korvik, Christiana, Felicita, Irena, Justyna, Kasandra, Tamara, Techlovan, Tim and Vanda.
Below is the report of Lubor Zelený, cherry breeding project manager at WSUO in Holouvosy, presented at the workshop on cherry variety innovation at Macfrut 2023.
10 Jan 2025
The main objective of the work conducted in Chile in collaboration with the German research center for artificial intelligence was to predict the daily spatial variation of plant water potentials through the use of machine learning models.
29 Nov 2024
“The way technology detects defects, precisely identifies colors, and sorts sizes is far superior to what mechanical sorters and humans could achieve. Considering the large volumes we handle and the high standards we need to meet today, using optical sorting is simply a must.”
24 Dec 2025
Jessica Rodríguez analyses the problems of rot in Chilean cherries exported to China in 2024/25, highlighting causes, impacts and solutions adopted. The report highlights critical issues in post-harvest management, sanitisation and product storage.
24 Dec 2025
CMD-YOLO is a new lightweight and fast algorithm that detects cherry ripeness in real time. Developed in Yunnan, it overcomes the limitations of traditional methods, improving accuracy and speed for more effective and smarter precision farming.
