2019 ASHS Annual Conference

Octoploid Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa) production has been challenged by various diseases deteriorating the fruit quality. Selection of the parents and elite lines for breeding against the diseases would be time and resource consuming based on the phenotypic observations. The RosBREED project of USDA-NIFA Specialty Crops Research Initiative project is focused on utilizing genetic information to improve rosaceous crops including strawberry. Utilizing the genetic information through DNA test to facilitate DNA-informed breeding can effectively enhance disease resistance and fruit quality traits. DNA tests help breeders to select superior seedlings and breeding accessions in prior to expensive and laborious phenotypic characterization in the field. In our research, we use various DNA markers for disease resistance and fruit quality for marker-assisted seedling selection (MASS). In the year 2018, we selected 12,500 seedlings out of 53,000 seedlings tested by multiple markers. The rapid DNA extraction and direct PCR genotyping using high-resolution melting (HRM) curve allows us to select only the seedlings with desirable traits. In the year 2019, we are planning to perform MASS for approximately 60,000 seedlings to target traits of disease resistance and fruit quality. The results of this year will be discussed in the conference presentation.