Location: Innovative Fruit Production, Improvement, and Protection
Project Number: 8080-21000-029-003-R
Project Type: Reimbursable Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Oct 1, 2014
End Date: Aug 31, 2019
Objective:
The objectives for this project are: 1) develop donor parents with multiple alleles for disease resistance, 2) enrich breeding families with alleles for disease resistance and superior fruit quality, 3) advance selections having alleles for superior fruit quality with improved confidence, 4) increase routine adoption of DNA-informed breeding, and 5) engage industry stakeholders in project outcomes, evaluation, and design.
Approach:
In years one through three, breeding populations derived from three sources of resistance to fire blight ('Seckel', 'Old Home', and Pyrus ussuriensis 76) will be phenotyped for reaction to artificial inoculation. All populations will be phenotyped for fruit soluble solids content. Tissue samples of the P. ussuriensis 76 population will be provided to project collaborators for quantitative trait loci (QTL) discovery using genome scanning. Tissue samples of the 'Seckel' and 'Old Home' populations will be provided to project collaborators to validate previously identified QTL markers. Tissue samples will also be provided to collaborators to genotype for candidate genes for fruit soluble solids content in year three. Additional genotyping will be performed for marker-assisted parental selection (MAPS) and marker-assisted seedling selection (MASS) in years four and five.
