Report on a desktop study to investigate the current world resources in
Rosaceous fruit breeding programmes
July 2005
V.H.Knight
K.M.Evans
D.W.Simpson
K.R.Tobutt
East Malling Research
New Road
East Malling
Kent
ME19 6BJ
Table of contents
Introduction...... 3
Approaches...... 5
Desktop study survey results...... 6
1. Apple Scion Breeding Programmes ...... 6
2. Apple Rootstock Breeding Programmes ...... 11
3. Pear Scion Breeding Programmes ...... 14
4. Pear Rootstock Breeding Programmes ...... 18
5.Sweet Cherry Breeding Programmes ...... 22
6. Domestic Plum Breeding Programmes ...... 26
7.Raspberry Breeding Programmes ...... 32
8. Blackberry Breeding Programmes ...... 39
9. Strawberry Breeding Programmes ...... 43
CASE STUDIES ON METHODS OF RELEASE ...... 52
1. Apple ...... 52
2. Sweet Cherry...... 55
3. Domestic Plum...... 56
4. Raspberry ...... 56
5. Strawberry...... 57
Conclusions...... 59
APPENDIX
I.Sample survey...... 61
II.Varieties released from East Malling...... 63
III.Visiting workers and students trained at East Malling...... 68
IV.Joint international papers...... 74
Introduction
Background
Defra is currently supporting strategic programmes underpinning breeding of a range of Rosaceous fruit crops at East Malling Research (EMR). Rosaceous fruit crops are economically important in many countries in the world and most crops are traded as world commodities. The major Rosaceous fruit crops are: the pome fruits, apples and pears; the stone fruits, apricots, cherries, nectarines, peaches and plums; and the soft or small fruits, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries. Apricots, nectarines and peaches are not produced commercially in the UK and there are no breeding programmes at EMR. Breeding and trialling new fruit cultivars takes from 10-20 years and breeding programmes need to anticipate the future requirements of the market. New and developing areas of production use existing cultivars initially, often bred in different countries or continents. As these industries develop and generate interest and income, they look to improve their production, profitability or market share by producing their own cultivars.In most countries with an expanding fruit industry, much of the crop is exported to the USA or Western Europe and the industry has been developedby international companies. In this situation new breeding programmes are generally private or international collaborative programmes.
The Study
This desktop study to investigate the current world resources in Rosaceous fruit breeding programmes has focused on the important public and private breeding programmes, where information on the latter has been forthcoming. The study has compared the major breeding targets of the different programmes and their scale of operation. It also looked at their current funding sources (public, industry, private and/or royalty returns) and expectation of funding in the next five years. The study has compared the output of the different programmes in terms of numbers of cultivars released in the last 20 years, numbers of older cultivars which were considered a commercial success and the estimated numbers of cultivars likely to be released within the next 5 years. Lastly the study indicates where there has been an exchange of germplasm between EMR and other programmes in the world. Thus this desktop study illustrates how the UK fruit breeding effort fits in to the international context and compares the output of the EMR programmes with other larger, similar or smaller programmes.
Within this report, we have produced:
- An extended and current network of useful international links to other Rosaceous fruit breeding programmes.
- A comprehensive reference document for Defra and other interested parties, outlining the state of play of current Rosaceous fruit breeding programmes in the UK and the rest of the world.
Overview of Findings
Defra is currently supporting strategic programmes underpinning breeding of a range of Rosaceous fruit crops at East Malling Research. This desktop study to investigate the current world resources in Rosaceous fruit breeding programmes focuses on the important public (and private where accessible) breeding programmes, determining the major breeding targets and their use and exchange of germplasm. This report illustrates how the UK fruit breeding effort fits in to the international context, highlighting both common and novel breeding targets within the programmes.
The fruit breeding team at EMRhas used its contacts with many well established breeding programmes around the world. However some breeding programmes have been reduced or terminated in countries where production has declined or state funding is no longer available. Before the collapse of communism there were many breeding programmes in the former USSRand Eastern Europe but many of these countries are facing financial difficulties and EMR’s former contacts are no longer full-time breeders. Several of the programmes in Eastern Europe reported a reduction on funding. With the exception of one strawberry breeding programme, no active breeders in Russia, Belarus, Moldova or the Ukraine, responded to the questionnaires sent from EMR.
This study showed that Rosaceous fruit breeders have a long list of breeding objectives and that fruit quality, pest and disease resistance, yield and regularity of cropping were universally very important. Resistance to individual diseases varied in importance in different countries, depending on which were the most damaging locally. Rosaceous fruit crops evolved in temperate regions and colder or hotter regions have different problems which are important targets in these regions.
The study showed that Rosaceous fruit breeding in general is strongly supported by governments, especially those in Australia, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, UK and USA. Programmes in the CzechRepublic, France, New Zealand and South Africa also receive significant government support but sometimes only half the cost of the programmes. There are a number of totally private programmes in the soft fruits,strawberry (6), raspberry (2) and blackberry (1). Private and collaborative programmes expect level or increasing funding in the next 5 years but many public programmes forecast a decrease in funding.
There is a wide range of staffing levels in the various programmes ranging from nine full time equivalents (FTEs) in the University of California strawberry programme to 0.01% FTEs on pear rootstocks in Australia and Lithuania. With pome and stone fruit (scions and rootstocks) one individual is often responsible for three or four commodities. Rootstock breeding is decreasing and there are very few active programmes left. All established programmes have released several cultivars in the last 20 years and expect to release more in the next 5 years. The strawberry programmes released the highest number of cultivars and seven programmes in UK, Italy, Poland, Australia and USA have released between 16 and 33 cultivars since 1985. Pear scion and rootstock programmes have released the fewest cultivars.
It takes years for the reputation of new fruit cultivars to be established, a few years in the case of strawberries but decades in the case of rootstocks. All programmes have released new cultivars which have been a commercial success in their country of origin but relatively few cultivars have had an international impact. Many of the pome and stone fruit scions and rootstocks released in the last 20 years have not yet been evaluated fully in the country of origin, far less overseas. Particularly important breeding institutes, in terms of current commercial cultivars, are those located in East Malling (apple rootstocks, pear scions, raspberries and strawberries), Cornell, USA (apple scions and rootstocks), Angers, France (pear rootstocks), British Columbia (cherries and raspberries) andCalifornia (strawberries and raspberries). In addition EMR has trained and collaborated with many fruit breeders from overseas and has published many international publications on collaborative work.
Approaches
This desktop study was undertaken as follows:
1.Up to date information was obtained in order to identify the principal breeding programmes by:
- Literature searches using plant breeding journals, Plant Breeding Abstracts and proceedings from recent conferences and international meetings; mainly those organized by the International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS), Eucarpia and the International Plant Genetic Resources Institute (IPGRI).
- Attendance at international meetings or discussion with colleagues following their attendance e.g. the 2004 ISHS meetings on plums and strawberries; the IPGRI meeting on Prunus in Sweden.
- An appropriate standard letter was designed and distributed requesting information from principal breeding contacts and followed up by email or telephone.
- The information received was collated and assimilated with information from other sources.
- The results were presented by summarizing the key breeding programmes worldwide in the major Rosaceous fruit crops and putting the UK breeding programmes in context. The report is divided into sections covering each crop separately as the questions asked and the responses given were, to some extent, crop specific. For each crop, the report contains, as available:
- List of contacts of the key breeding programmes investigated
- Major breeding targets of each programme
- Scale of the programme, their funding and their medium to long term outlook
- Estimated number of releases in the next 5 years, number of releases in the last 20 years and number of successful older releases
- Whether or not germplasm has been exchanged with East Malling Research
- A description of how various cultivars have been released and commercialised by different programmes was prepared.
- How the EMR programmes compare and relate to the other Rosaceous breeding programmes in the world was summarized briefly.
- In addition the report contains four Appendices:
- A sample survey illustrating the information requested.
- A complete list of cultivars released from the East Malling breeding programmes and an indication of their relative success, nationally and internationally.
- A list of visitors and students who have been trained by the fruit breeding team at East Malling and an indication of how many individuals are still active in the discipline.
- A complete list of joint international publications
Desktop study survey results
1.Apple Scion Breeding Programmes
Table 1.1Key contacts of the breeding programmes investigated
Country / Institute / Code / Contact details / ReplyEurope
1 / UK / East Malling Research / EMR / Kate Evans
/
2 / Belgium / Better3Fruit, Leuven / LUE / Inge de Wit
/
3 / Czech republic / Research and Breeding Institute of
Pomology, Holovousy / HOL / Jan Blazek
/
France / Delbard Nurseries, Malicorne /
4 / France / INRA Angers / ANG / Francois Laurens
/
5 / Latvia / Dobele Horticultural Plant Breeding Experimental Station / DOB / Lalia Ikase
/
6 / Lithuania / Lithuanian Institute of Horticulture, Babtai / BAB / Bronius Gelvonauskis
/
Rest of the world
Australia / Manjimup Horticultural Research Centre /
China / Laiyang Agricultural College, Shandong / Hongyi Dai
Japan / Aomori Apple Experimental Station, Kennan Fruit Tree Research Centre /
Japan / National Institute of Fruit Tree Science, Morioka / Kazuyuki Abe
New Zealand / HortResearch,
Havelock North / Richard Volz
7 / South Africa / ARC Infruitec-Nietvoorbij, Stellenbosch / STE / Iwan Labuschagne
/
8 / USA / Cornell University, New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, NY / GEN / Susan Brown
/
USA / PurdueUniversity, Rutgers, The StateUniversity of New Jersey, and the University of Illinois / Schuyler Korban
The level of response from other breeders was generally quite disappointing, particularly outside Europe. This could be partly explained by the fact that there have been several questionnaires circulated by other breeders within the last year, including one from EMR asking about different cultural methods for fruit assessment plots.
Table 1.2Major breeding targets
Breeding target / Apple breeding programmes1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8
UK
EMR / BEL
LEU / CZE
HOL / FRA
ANG / LAT
DOB / LIT
BAB / SA
STE / USA
GEN
Fruit Quality
Flavour / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 2 / 1
Sugar level / 1
Acidity / 2
Texture / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1
Juiciness / 1 / 1 / 1
Attractiveness / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1
Non-browning flesh / 2
Higher vitamin C or antioxidant / 1
Freedom from storage disorders / 1 / 1 / 3 / 2 / 1
Storage ability / 1 / 1 / 1 / 2 / 1 / 1
Shelf-life / 1 / 3
Consistent quality / 1 / 1 / 1
Disease and Pest Resistance
Resistance to Scab (Vf +) / 2 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 1 / 2
Resistance to Powdery mildew / 2 / 1 / 1 / 2 / 2 / 3 / 2
Resistance to Fire blight / 2 / 2
Resistance to Rosy apple aphid / 3 / 2
Resistance to Nectria canker / 3 / 2 / 3
Resistance to Phytophthora / 2
Resistance to Phyllosticta / 3
Multiple resistance / 2 / 2 / 2
Plant habit
Precocity / 1 / 2
Regular cropping / 1 / 2 / 1 / 2 / 1
Low chilling / 1
Self thinning / 2 / 2 / 3
Late flowering / 3
Winter-hardiness / 1
Resistance to spring frosts / 2
Bearing type / 3 / *
Vigour / 2
Increased vegetative budbreak / 2
Spindle-shaped / *
Easy training / 2 / 2 / 1
Columnar-type apple / 2 / 1 / 2 / *
Yield/Season
Medium to High productivity / 1 / 2 / 1 / 2 / 1
Middle /late season / 1 / * / 1 / *
Summer / early season / 3 / 2 / *
Whole season – range / 3
1= very important, 3= low importance
The major breeding targets of the apple scion breeding programmes are, as expected, fairly similar when looking at fruit quality. All programmes, including EMR, focus on flavour (or sugar and acidity), and the majority also select for attractiveness, texture and storage ability. The importance of other more specific characters, such as high vitamin C or antioxidant levels, are more restricted, in this case to the USA.
All expressed an interest in resistance to pests and/or diseases; however with the exception of scab (Venturia inaequalis) resistance which is of high to medium importance to all the programmes, the range of resistances varies between the different programmes, most probably reflecting the problems of the local fruit industries. The reduced importance of breeding for resistance within the EMR apple breeding programme reflects the views of the funders, the Apple & Pear Breeding Club. Although they are keen for the programme to continue to produce resistant varieties, they have suggested keeping these crosses to less than half of the total of the programme.
Responses were much more varied towards plant habit and pomological traits, some of these again reflect the localised problems of the fruit industry particularly towards climate. For example, winter-hardiness and resistance to spring frosts are obviously problems in Latvia; however the South African programme is working towards varieties with a low chilling requirement. Four of the eight programmes expressed an interest in breeding for columnar-type habit.
Breeding for medium to high yield is generally of interest but there was little agreement about the importance ofcropping season.
Table 1.3Scale of the programme and medium to long term outlook
Apple scion breeding programmes1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8
UK
EMR / BEL
LEU / CZE
HOL / FRA
ANG / LAT
DOB / LIT
BAB / SA
STE / USA
GEN
Staffing (number of FTE*) / 0.8 / 4 / 2.5 / 1.6 / 1 / 2 / 5 / 2
Number of crosses per year / 20 / 40 / 10 - 15 every 2nd year / 20 to 30 / 20 + / 4 to 20
Number of seedlings raised per year / 12000- 15000 / 10000 / 5000 / 10000- 15000 / 2000- 3000 / 5000- 7000 / 1500- 20000 / 3000-7500
Number of selections for 1st stage trialling per year / 500 / 100 / 50 / 20-30 / 15-20 / 40% / 10 / 1-10%
Current funding:
State / 25% / 50% / 50% / 100% / 100% / 50% / 25%
Region
Private / 90% / 75% / 50% / 50% / 25%
Industry / 10% / 50% / 50%
Future funding / stable / stable / stable / stable / stable / stable / increasing / decreasing
* FTE = full time equivalents
The staffing levels of the programmes varied from five FTEs in South Africa right down to 0.8 FTEs in the EMR commercial breeding programme. Interestingly, the staffing levels do not appear to reflect the number of seedlings raised per year which is perhaps a more accurate indication of the scale of the programmes.
The large variation in the number of selections for first stage trialling per year could either reflect the differing selection protocols and growing systems of the breeders or could merely be an artefact due to misunderstanding of the question posed.
Sources of current funding are primarily from the state, with all of the programmes that responded receiving at least 25% of their funding from the state apart from the EMR commercial apple breeding programme. Only Latvia and Lithuania are still 100% state funded. Future outlooks appear to be generally stable apart from the South African programme where an increase in funding is expected and the Cornell, USA programme who are expecting a reduction in funding from the state but are hoping to fill the gap with more University or industry support.
Table 1.4Release of varieties and germplasm exchange
Apple scion breeding programmes1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8
UK
EMR / BEL
LEU / CZE
HOL / FRA
ANG / LAT
DOB / LIT
BAB / SA
STE / USA
GEN
Estimated number of new releases (in 5 yrs) / 1? / 5 / 5? / 3? / 5 - 7 / 30 - 40 / 1 / 5+
Number of releases in last 20 years / 9 / 2 / 17 / 8 / 7 / 4 / 3 / 3
Number of older releases / 2 / 0 / 4 / 2 / 3 / 2 / 0 / 2
The number of releases (both previous and estimated future releases) varies widely across the programmes. Many of the programmes breed primarily for their local industry with very few of their varieties achieving any level of success elsewhere. Some of the programmes are also now restricted in terms of numbers of release due to the cost of protecting the varieties with a reasonable level of Plant Variety Rights or Patents. It would be very surprising if the proposed 30-40 releases from the Lithuanian programme (6) were all protected.
From the releases annotated in the table, there are perhaps only the two from the programme at Cornell University, USA (8), ‘Jonagold’ and ‘Empire’ that have had any sort of worldwide impact.
In terms of germplasm exchange, many of the programmes worldwide received some of the early disease resistant breeding lines from the programme at East Malling and have based many crosses on the same material. In more recent years, as with the apple rootstocks and the pear scions and rootstocks, advanced selection germplasm from the EMR Apple & Pear Breeding Club has been widely circulated to trial sites within the Club plus some external assessors however exchange of material for breeding has been restricted due to the commercial funding behind the programme. Some of the programmes however have benefited from the columnar apple breeding lines which are not held within the agreement between EMR and the Apple & Pear Breeding Club.
Some of the Czech material has been trialled at East Malling with a particular interest for use in organic production systems and ‘Julia’ has been used in the breeding programme. Two self-thinning breeding lines were recently received from INRA and both ‘Jonagold’ and ‘Empire’ from Cornell have also been used for crossing. As with the apple rootstock breeding programme, several selections have been incorporated into EMR breeding lines from the apple repository at Geneva,New York.