The 2010 ASHS Annual Conference

Objective(s):
In September, the USDA-SCRI program awarded a grant that seeks to increase the breeding efficiency of Rosaceous species. This project entitled “RosBREED: Enabling marker-assisted breeding in the Rosaceae” involves four crop groups, apple, strawberry, peach and cherry, and 12 breeders. We are very interested in extending the reach of our project to other rosaceous crop breeders who are not in our grant and fruit breeders in general. As the first translational genomics CAP project funded for a fruit crop family, our project would provide non-rosaceous crop breeders insight into how one diverse plant community came together to embrace our crop diversity (and polyploid complexity) and move forward with a common goal. Our RosBREED team would appreciate the opportunity to present a Workshop at ASHS sponsored by the Fruit Breeding Working Group, to help us engage the wider fruit breeding community. Complete details of our project can be found at www.rosbreed.org

The Rosaceae family (including apple, peach, sweet and tart cherries, and strawberry) provides vital contributions to human health and well-being, and collectively constitutes the economic backbone of many U.S. rural communities. Rosaceae genetics and genomics are developing rapidly but have not been translated to routine practical application. RosBREED will create a national, dynamic, sustained effort in research, infrastructure establishment, training, and extension for applying marker-assisted breeding (MAB) to deliver improved plant materials more efficiently and rapidly. Specific objectives are to: (1) enhance the likelihood of new cultivar adoption, enlarge market potential, and increase consumption of rosaceous fruits by using socio-economic knowledge of stakeholder values and consumer preferences to inform breeding; (2) establish sustainable technical infrastructure for an efficient MAB Pipeline in Rosaceae, including crop-specific SNP genome scan platforms for breeding-relevant germplasm exploiting the shared ancestry of Rosaceae crops; (3) integrate breeding and genomics resources by establishing a user-friendly U.S.-wide standardized statistical framework and breeding information management system; (4) implement MAB in core RosBREED breeding programs with a common focus on fruit quality traits; and (5) enhance sustainability of cultivar development by transferring MAB technologies to the public and private community of U.S. Rosaceae breeders through training current and future breeders as well as engaging the production, processing and marketing sectors, allied scientists, and consumers. RosBREED funding is provided from the USDA-SCRI, award number 2009-51181-05808.