The Hardy Kiwifruit (A. arguta (Sieb. & Zucc.) Planch. ex Miq.) is one of the valuable species due to their edible fruit, high content of nutritious substances, especially abundant of vitamin C, and distinctive flavor and medicinal usage. In order to develop a new A. arguta cultivar with larger fruit and high yielding, 168 candidate plants were collected from wild population in 12 locations distributed 4 provinces (Chungbuk, Gangwon, Gyeongnam, Jeonbuk) from 1985 to 1987. A clone bank that contained highly productive, superior genotypes of A. arguta was assembled in 1988, and 32 excellent clones were selected in 1996 through the clonal test for the growth and fruiting. Evaluation on these clones was done for the fruiting characteristics, yield trial, and major agronomic traits, such as Average Fruit Length (FL) and Width (FW), and Weight of Fruit (WF) and Individual Yields (IY), during 6 years (1997~2002). After the final selection, a new A. arguta cultivar, “Sae-Han” with larger fruit and high yielding was registered as a new variety denomination and certificated variety production and merchandising in 2006 (Table 1). “Sae-Han” is a tetraploid plant and has ellipsoid fruit shape, and has particularly large fruit size (Fig. 1, Table 3). The major agronomic traits of “Sae-Han” showed the large values and selection effect with an average of 43.6 mm (FL), 36.1 mm (FW), 29.4 g (WF), and 17.5 kg (IY), which are 35.0%, 19.9%, 81.5%, and 124.4% compared to the mean of 29 sample trees, respectively (Table 2).

• Yong Seok Jang
• Moon Ho Lee
• Byung Sil Lee
• Suk In Hwang