2018 ASHS Annual Conference

Red raspberry (Rubus idaeus L.) is a globally commercialized specialty crop. Field management of raspberry canes and harvesting of raspberry fruit can be complicated by the presence of spines or prickles (as is botanically more accurate) on the stems, petioles and underside of the leaves. Prickles are an outgrowth of epidermal tissues that lack vasculature. The development of new raspberry varieties with fewer or prickle-free canes will aid in both harvesting of the fruit and field management. A population segregating for the presence of prickles was used in this study to understand the regulation of prickle development. Quantitative trait loci (QTL) mapping of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) developed through genotype-by-sequencing (GBS) identified one QTL in a 1 Mb region with 186 genes associated with the trait. RNA-sequencing analysis further gave insights on the genes that are likely to regulate prickle development in red raspberry. This study provides the basis for understanding prickle development mechanisms in red raspberries and could be used as the foundation for genetic engineering to produce prickle-free raspberry varieties and to study other traits possibly associated with prickle development.