research update


Breeding can’t happen overnight Grower trials ahead as blueberry program develops ‘a lot of promisingmaterial’. By Grant Ullyot


priorities for horticultural traits in new varieties and the second to rank diseases they were concerned about. “We got some really interesting results from that and it has really helped us to set the direction for what our priorities are going to be in the program.”


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uccess is often a matter of time, and that’s particularly true when developing new plant varieties. Speaking at this year’s Horticulture Growers’ Short Course, the head of the B.C. Blueberry Council’s research team, Michael Dossett, reviewed progress of the breeding program that eventually will produce new berry varieties for the industry.


“If everything goes really well it takes about 15 years to get a variety out the door from the time you start a crop,” he said.


“At every stage when you propagate something for trial and it looks good, you then have to propagate more plants for larger trials, that sort of thing, so it takes quite a while.”


Dossett explained that there was just a handful of seedlings the first few years of the breeding program, which began in 2008. “So we are really just starting to get underway now with seedlings from crops that were laid in 2011, and there is a lot of promising material in that batch.”


The researchers are planning to be ready for grower trials in the fall. “There is a long list of things that we really need to be successful. One of the things we are really looking at that is really important is color – can’t have red backs; can’t have really black, dark colored fruit — it has to have a nice bloom on it, nice even color. It can’t be stemmy, it has to come off without the stems because that is a big problem. “And of course picking scars are also really important. You can’t have a big wet picking scar or else the berries are just going to shrivel up.” This can also be an entry point for such problems as post-harvest fruit rot.


“We want something that has a nice, small dry picking scar to minimize moisture loss and fruit rot.”


Dossett said a survey was conducted a number of years ago that had two questions. One asked people to rank


British Columbia Berry Grower • Summer 2016 11


Dossett said people were overwhelmingly interested in machine harvest stability and firmer fruit, “and those kind of go together, because if you want the machine- harvestable variety for the fresh market it has to be firm.


GRANT ULLYOT


“Then number three on the list was a better erect growth habit, which also goes along with machine harvest stability in a lot of ways. The fourth one listed was developing resistance to cracking and splitting.” He explained that in setting the team’s objectives, number one was to select new varieties with really good fruit quality that are going to be machine-harvestable and have a nice growth habit.


Michael Dossett


most of which were geared towards what could be parental material, “with about 10 to 15 that we think have pretty good potential and we are starting to propagate for trials.” The problem of fruit splitting is the subject of a project that12 students have been working on for the last two summers. “Rain splitting is a big problem because you never know when during the growing season you are going to get rain,” said Dossett, who expects


Regarding disease resistance, Dossett said there are several they are interested in working on, “but this is one of our more long-term goals in the program. “In terms of firmness, we did some work a few years ago looking at fruit in cold storage over time. We have a number of selections in the program which make Draper look soft. So we are really moving in the right direction, I think.


Dossett said the breeding program developed about 60 selections in 2015,


to be continuing this project for a few more years in hopes of developing a berry that is more resistant to splitting. “We are making really good progress with fruit quality, especially firmness. We have several selections in the program that are really, really, firm. “Resistance to fruit cracking in our germplasm appears to have moderate hurt ability, so we should be able to select and make progress in breeding material that is less susceptible to cracking.


“We have identified resistance to godronia in the germplasm and we crafted it into our breeding lines. We’re working toward developing systems to identify resistance to material blight, but more work needs to done. We are going to be starting to screen root rot tolerance in the greenhouse using a similar method to what we do in the raspberries.”


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