Pear rootstock breeding in the U.S. Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest (PNW) accounts for over 80% of the United States of America’s pear production, but the industry is economically stagnated by the lack of dwarfing and precocious rootstocks that revolutionized other competitive fruit crops, such as apple.
While quince is used as a rootstock in global pear production, concerns about potential graft incompatibility and lack of cold hardiness limit its adoption in the U.S. In 2015, the Washington State University (WSU) pear rootstock breeding program was initiated with the overarching goal of producing dwarfing and precocious rootstocks, initially focused on Pyrus, that are suited especially for the PNW. Collection of a small, but diverse set of germplasm (i.e., crossing parents) began in 2009. The program currently has approximately 2,000 rootstock seedling trees that were grafted with a standard scion cultivar in the WSU Phase 1 evaluation orchard.
These seedlings are evaluated for their vigor-controlling capacity and precocity.
In addition, the availability of genomic resources, such as the 70K Pyrus SNP array is enabling high-quality genotyping.
Genetic analyses are underway to identify genomic regions that associated with dwarfing and precocity.

XIV International Pear Symposium

S.L. Teh, K. Evans

dwarfing, precocity, high-density, genetics, genomics

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2024.1403.38