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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Miami, Florida » Subtropical Horticulture Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #279860
Title: Florida Breeding Program Bearing Fruit: The South Florida Avocado Breeding Program at USDA-Agricultural Research Service Subtropical Horticulture Research Station (USDA-ARS SHRS)

Author
item Kuhn, David
item Tondo, Cecile
item Freeman, Barbara - Barbie
item Winterstein, Michael - Mikey
item Livingstone, Donald
item Ayala Silva, Tomas
item Gutierrez, Osman
item SCHNELL, RAYMOND - Former ARS Employee

Submitted to: Trade Journal Publication
Publication Type: Trade Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 3/15/2012
Publication Date: 4/15/2012
Citation: Kuhn, D.N., Tondo, C.L., Freeman, B.L., Winterstein, M.C., Livingstone, D., Ayala Silva, T., Gutierrez, O.A., Schnell, R.J. 2012. Florida Breeding Program Bearing Fruit: The South Florida Avocado Breeding Program at USDA-Agricultural Research Service Subtropical Horticulture Research Station (USDA-ARS SHRS). From the Grove. 2(1):22-25.

Interpretive Summary: USDA-ARS SHRS is part of the USDA National Germplasm Repository system and houses collections of tropical and subtropical fruit trees such as mango, lychee, and avocado. In addition to maintaining the germplasm collections, our mission is to also identify genetic diversity in the collections, to evaluate the accessions for agronomic traits when possible and to identify and release improved varieties for commercial exploitation. Avocado research at SHRS includes these maintenance, evaluation, and enhancement components, and embedded within these conservation and utilization areas are included the aspects of breeding and disease screening for Avocado Sunblotch viroid (ASBVd), Phytopthora Root Rot (PRR) and laurel wilt at an off-station site. In addition, we have an avocado breeding program to identify superior cultivars for Florida growing conditions. We are currently evaluating a large family of trees made by crossing two Florida avocado cultivars, Simmonds and Tonnage using modern molecular genetic techniques. The information discussed in the paper should be of interest to avocado growers and other stakeholders in the avocado production industry.

Technical Abstract: USDA-ARS SHRS is part of the USDA National Germplasm Repository system and houses collections of tropical and subtropical fruit trees such as mango, lychee, and avocado. In addition to maintaining the germplasm collections, our mission is to also identify genetic diversity in the collections, to evaluate the accessions for agronomic traits when possible and to identify and release improved varieties for commercial exploitation. Avocado research at SHRS includes these maintenance, evaluation, and enhancement components, and embedded within these conservation and utilization areas are included the aspects of breeding and disease screening for Avocado Sunblotch viroid (ASBVd), Phytopthora Root Rot (PRR) and laurel wilt at an off-station site. We currently have the two largest families of avocado hybrids in the world for evaluation for avocado breeding, ~750 trees of ‘Hass’-‘Bacon’ hybrids and ~750 trees of ‘Simmonds’-‘Tonnage’ hybrids. We have developed a sensitive polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based assay for ASBVd and investigated PRR resistant root stocks for South Florida growing conditions, which are much wetter than those of California. An important goal of avocado breeding is to identify new, improved cultivars of avocado that can be supplied to growers to deal with environmental conditions, disease prevalence, or consumer taste. Our goal is to create very large families of avocado trees varying for important traits that we will analyze with a large number of DNA markers to generate a highly significant association between DNA marker and trait. The markers in those regions will be used in marker-assisted selection (MAS) to develop new cultivars for commercial release in South Florida.