Public Funding for Dole UK Limited

Flavour is a complex trait under large environmental and seasonal effects which already poses a challenge to breeders and will be more problematic with extreme weather events and climate changes. Conventional breeding and selection techniques are slow and hindered by seasonal and environmental variation with QTL mapping also varying with the environment. Recent omics tools have been developed (genome scaffolds, gene expression & metaboloics data, correlation networks) that will allow us to investigate and validate links between berry flavour and its controlling factors (metabolites, genes, environment) to develop a useful model. This feasibility study aims to improve raspberry flavour by utilising omics data alongside historic genotype, phenotype, met & QTL data with novel flavour profiling research to develop new breeding models.

In the Northern Hemisphere with damper conditions, Phytophthora root rot is causing a rapid decline in raspberry plantations grown in soil and also greatly decreasing the life span of production of raspberries grown in substrate with negative environmental consequenses. Plant based resistance is the only way forward and limited material exists that consistently withstands infection with little/no symptom production. The development of gene based techniques offers an opportunity to identify genes that have a significant role in this plant-pathogen interaction to determine the mechanisms of resistance and develop novel strategies of protection including breeding. How both resistant and susceptible varieties respond at the level of gene expression and how the pathogen responds to the differing phenotypes will identify gene markers and allow strategies for control to be developed.

There has been increased demand for blueberries in recent years fuelled in part because of their many recognised health benefits. Development of new blueberry cultivars with high fruit and nutritional quality combined with early and late ripening and appropriate climatic adaptation is needed. With the availability of more genomic resources, marker-assisted breeding could be used in cultivar development to more efficiently combine traits for fruit and nutritional quality specific to UK climatic adaptation. This project would therefore develop pre-breeding populations and a high resolution GbS linkage map to allow the UK to develop adapted blueberry cultivars efficiently, cost effectively and in a shorter time frame than would be feasible by traditional breeding means. This would allow the UK to produce more home grown fruit for consumption to increase from the 5% UK fruit currently available.

The food retail industry is experiencing increasing demand from consumers for UK grown fresh produce and would like to substitute imports with home produce. The demand for home grown plums cannot currently be met due to unreliable and inefficient cropping systems. This collaborative project will develop integrated new technologies that will address the major existing production problems and limitations for fresh plums. The sustainable intensification of this horticultural crop will be achieved through integration of a high-density growing system with new rootstocks, varieties and manipulation of tree architecture for increased yield, coupled with protected cropping regimes and component technologies that will regulate crop load, fruit ripening and give significant season extension. This intensive and profitable growing system will enable UK growers to confidently invest in plum production, delivering substantial economic impact (>£10 m/yr) to the UK horticulture industry.

New crop varieties that can tolerate abiotic/biotic stresses are essential for maintaining crop productivity in current and future growing environments. Breeding stress-tolerant crop varieties, however, is limited by the precision and throughput of plant phenotyping. This project will develop and apply a novel tractor-mounted platform for precise and high throughput field phenotyping of plant stress responses of soft fruit crops using IRT and hyperspectral imaging. It is proposed also to assess the value of canopy imaging as an indirect indicator of abiotic and biotic root stresses. Soft fruit crops such as raspberry can experience multiple stresses in field conditions, including poor soil conditions, variable water availability, and attack by root rot pathogens and root-feeding vine weevil larvae. Phenotyping data will be linked to genetic markers to facilitate breeding of productive, stress-resistant soft fruit varieties. This novel high-throughput phenotyping platform will accelerate the development and release of productive high quality soft fruit varieties that perform well in sustainable reduced input cropping and is expected to be valuable for routine monitoring of crops and stress diagnosis.

Plums and cherries are among the favourite fruits of the consumer, but currently much of the demand is met by imported fruit. With new plum and cherry varieties and new production techniques the UK industry has the potential to increase production. However, post-harvest losses can be significant due to fungal rots and rapid loss of fruit quality. The objective of this project is to develop improved methods of managing the fruit post-harvest based on cold storage and the use of post-harvest biocontrol treatments to minimise losses due to fungal rots and to maintain fruit quality. These new control strategies post-harvest will enable growers and distributors to reduce fruit waste, extend product shelf-life, extend the marketing period and provide UK-consumers with first quality, locally produced plums and cherries for longer.