The 2009 ASHS Annual Conference

Objective(s):
To present an overview of the use of interspecific hybrids in several fruit crops, and to show how useful characters are being incorporated from diverse germplasm.

Interspecific hybrids have been utilized by breeders in a diverse range of fruit crops to access valuable characteristics impacting fruit quality traits, disease resistance, and adaptation. The significant features of most uses of interspecific hybridization are the identification of the character or characters to be to be incorporated, determination of the optimal methodologies for transfer or hybridization, and critically, the successful recovery a commercial horticultural type.

The methodologies needed for successful use of germplasm have covered the range from traditional to molecular. This workshop will examine specific examples of interspecific hybridization in fruit improvement from Citrus, Rubus, Vaccinium, and Vitis.