Merely in a sole decade 610 apple cultivars were released worldwide
(Fideghelli, 2006). Earliness is considered as target in various
breeding programs (Røen et al., 2000; Tancred and Zeppa, 1995).
Brown (1960) described earliness as a polygenic trait with high
hereditability and also genetic additive variance. He proposed to
predict earliness by the calculation of the mean of ripening time
recorded in their parents as the best strategy. But our results
showed that it gives no cover to half sib progenies owing to
unidentified pollen source and due to high variability within full
sib families mainly when the parents are from far geographical
origins. In both above mentioned conditions we have no tool to
select most probable early genotypes within large bred progenies
obtained from early parents. Similar comment as ours was
reported by Tancred and Zeppa (1995), rejecting likewise that
crosses between two early ripening parents would produce a
population skewed toward lateness and with reduced variation.