Articles
Forty years of prune breeding at UC Davis
Article number
1450_51
Pages
389 – 394
Language
English
Abstract
Forty years ago, California prune industry representatives requested that I develop a prune breeding program using the breeding expertise of my staff associate, James Doyle.
Jim had previously worked for a fruit tree breeder and understood the fundamentals of fruit tree breeding.
At the time, the California prune industry was dependent on a single prune cultivar (‘Improved French’) and was expanding its acreage.
The industry was primarily interested in extending the harvest season to make more efficient use of harvesting machinery and drying facilities.
Previous genetic research had indicated that it should be possible to accomplish this goal using natural variation in the progeny of ‘Improved French’. However, that cultivar proved to be an unacceptable parent and never produced horticulturally productive offspring.
Thus, in 1985 we began collecting and evaluating Prunus domestica cultivars that displayed fruit quality characteristics that might be aligned with desired prune quality characteristics.
This included nine clones that had been developed in France.
Over the past 40 years recurrent selection has been used, based on the phenotypic qualities of the offspring produced from crosses of the original collection of individual cultivars.
Several new cultivars have been released from this program but, up to now, none have satisfied the needs of the California prune industry.
However, now we have developed a breeding population capable of producing new fruit types with exceptional dried fruit characteristics suitable for commercial production.
An example new cultivar is ‘UC G2S-8’ (UC-Yolo Gold™). This is a new yellow-fruited prune cultivar that was recently released from this program.
It is distinguished by its exceptional dried fruit flavor.
We currently have identified several additional selections that are being planted in large-scale field trials to verify their suitability for mechanical harvesting, drying, processing and pitting, as well as consumer acceptance.
Some of these selections can obtain very high soluble solids contents (>30 Brix) and low dry-away ratios (~2.3-2.7), two industry priorities.
Forty years of hard work is beginning to pay off!
Jim had previously worked for a fruit tree breeder and understood the fundamentals of fruit tree breeding.
At the time, the California prune industry was dependent on a single prune cultivar (‘Improved French’) and was expanding its acreage.
The industry was primarily interested in extending the harvest season to make more efficient use of harvesting machinery and drying facilities.
Previous genetic research had indicated that it should be possible to accomplish this goal using natural variation in the progeny of ‘Improved French’. However, that cultivar proved to be an unacceptable parent and never produced horticulturally productive offspring.
Thus, in 1985 we began collecting and evaluating Prunus domestica cultivars that displayed fruit quality characteristics that might be aligned with desired prune quality characteristics.
This included nine clones that had been developed in France.
Over the past 40 years recurrent selection has been used, based on the phenotypic qualities of the offspring produced from crosses of the original collection of individual cultivars.
Several new cultivars have been released from this program but, up to now, none have satisfied the needs of the California prune industry.
However, now we have developed a breeding population capable of producing new fruit types with exceptional dried fruit characteristics suitable for commercial production.
An example new cultivar is ‘UC G2S-8’ (UC-Yolo Gold™). This is a new yellow-fruited prune cultivar that was recently released from this program.
It is distinguished by its exceptional dried fruit flavor.
We currently have identified several additional selections that are being planted in large-scale field trials to verify their suitability for mechanical harvesting, drying, processing and pitting, as well as consumer acceptance.
Some of these selections can obtain very high soluble solids contents (>30 Brix) and low dry-away ratios (~2.3-2.7), two industry priorities.
Forty years of hard work is beginning to pay off!
Publication
Authors
T.M. DeJong, S. Castro
Keywords
dried plum, sugar plum
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