DEVELOPMENTS AND PROGRESS IN RIBES BREEDING

The breeding objectives for new cultivars of Ribes are increasingly aligned with the commercial requirements of the relevant industry and downstream processors, and fruit quality parameters are now of equal importance to many agronomic traits.
Since blackcurrants especially are in oversupply throughout Europe at the present time, yield is no longer the main driver for selection of new blackcurrant cultivars, and there is an increasing demand for fruit of high quality, particularly in nutritional and sensory components, grown in low-input systems.
This demand now extends to the small fresh market for Ribes fruits, including redcurrant and gooseberry, partly as a result of public health awareness.
The development of molecular markers to more effectively link genotype with preferred phenotypes is continuing in blackcurrant at SCRI, and the first genetic linkage map has recently been completed.
Several phenotypic traits have been added to the map, and the development of markers linked to these traits, both agronomic and quality-related, is continuing.

IX International Rubus and Ribes Symposium

R. Brennan, D. Stewart, J. Russell

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.2008.777.3