Articles
Heritability of leaf and fruit calcium may enable selection against green fruit drop disorder in highbush blueberry breeding
Article number
1357_24
Pages
163 – 170
Language
English
Abstract
Green fruit drop (GFD) is a physiological disorder of highbush blueberry that correlates with a localized calcium (Ca) deficiency in fruit tissues, resulting in pre-mature drop of green fruit prior to fruit coloring.
Causing substantial yield reduction in commercial fields, GFD was first observed in Draper in the Fraser Valley, British Columbia (BC), Canada.
Subsequently, the condition has been observed in several other production regions around the world and in other cultivars and breeding selections, including genotypes related to Draper as well as reports of what appears to be the same disorder in unrelated genotypes.
Decreased incidence of GFD is correlated with increased fruit Ca, which is achieved through corrective foliar Ca applications during early fruit development.
The prevalent use of Draper in breeding programs motivated investigation of the heritability of fruit Ca content in fruit and leaf tissues.
Using 54 selections from the BC Berry Breeding Program and three cultivars with Draper as a parent, a survey of fruit and leaf Ca content was conducted using plants grown in Agassiz, BC. From 2017 to 2020, tissue analyses were conducted on 14 progeny families, ranging in number from one to 11 genotypes, and compared against parental genotypes.
Narrow-sense heritability varied across years for both fruit and leaf Ca, being low for the former and negligible for the latter when averaged over four years.
Strong environmental influence on these traits indicates that traditional selection methods will be ineffective for eliminating selections prone to GFD. Therefore, development of genetic markers for the purpose of marker assisted selection should be a priority for global blueberry breeding efforts.
Causing substantial yield reduction in commercial fields, GFD was first observed in Draper in the Fraser Valley, British Columbia (BC), Canada.
Subsequently, the condition has been observed in several other production regions around the world and in other cultivars and breeding selections, including genotypes related to Draper as well as reports of what appears to be the same disorder in unrelated genotypes.
Decreased incidence of GFD is correlated with increased fruit Ca, which is achieved through corrective foliar Ca applications during early fruit development.
The prevalent use of Draper in breeding programs motivated investigation of the heritability of fruit Ca content in fruit and leaf tissues.
Using 54 selections from the BC Berry Breeding Program and three cultivars with Draper as a parent, a survey of fruit and leaf Ca content was conducted using plants grown in Agassiz, BC. From 2017 to 2020, tissue analyses were conducted on 14 progeny families, ranging in number from one to 11 genotypes, and compared against parental genotypes.
Narrow-sense heritability varied across years for both fruit and leaf Ca, being low for the former and negligible for the latter when averaged over four years.
Strong environmental influence on these traits indicates that traditional selection methods will be ineffective for eliminating selections prone to GFD. Therefore, development of genetic markers for the purpose of marker assisted selection should be a priority for global blueberry breeding efforts.
Publication
Authors
E.M. Gerbrandt, M. Dossett
Keywords
nutrient content, calcium deficiency, physiological disorder, nutrient partitioning, plant breeding, marker assisted selection, breeding value
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