BREEDING CLOUDBERRY (RUBUS CHAMAEMORUS L.) FOR COMMERCIAL USE

Cloudberry (Rubus chamaemorus L.) is a dioecious, wild-growing perennial plant species with a circumpolar distribution.
Some years ago, we started the commercialisation of cloudberry production, including plant breeding, plant propagation, growing on soil cultivated fields, and product development.
When the breeding programme started there had not been any plant breeding on cloudberry before.
Wild-growing material was used, therefore, as basis for our breeding.
The populations were grown for five years in framed peat-beds in a plastic greenhouse.
Several phenotypic characters were observed.
For females, the most important characters for commercial use are:
– Berry size (observed as the number of pistils per flower).
– Number of flowers per m^².
– Growth speed (observed as number of shots per m^², in 1^st and 2^nd year).
For males, the most important characters for commercial use are:
– Flower size (observed as number of stamens per flower).
– Number of flowers per m^².
– Growth speed (number of shots per m^², in 1^st and 2^nd year).
The variability of the most important characters and their variance components were calculated, and thereafter, their broad sense heritability (h^²b) was estimated.
Based of the index scores we selected the best two females, An 276 (cultivar named ‘Fjordgull’) and If 542 (cultivar named ‘Fjellgull’), and the best two males, An 30 (cultivar named ‘Apollen’) and An 248 (cultivar named ‘Apolto’).

VIII International Rubus and Ribes Symposium

K. Rapp, I. Martinussen

wild berry, commercialisation, plant breeding, selection index

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2002.585.23