Rootstock Breeding and Evaluation

Fruit and vegetable production systems are becoming more efficient by the application of rootstock technologies to overcome major production barriers caused by abiotic and biotic stressors and more productive by leveraging rootstock effects on scion productivity. In this context, the Working Group Rootstock Breeding and Evaluation fosters interdisciplinary research on varied rootstock topics that include: rootstock germplasm diversity and development, breeding methods, root and rootstock traits, rootstock propagation, rootstock-scion interactions and signaling, rootstock soil and soil microbiome interactions, rootstock disease and insect resistance, mitigation of climate change stressors through development of new rootstocks, rootstock evaluation methods and results from long term multi-site comparative field studies (e.g. EUFRIN, NC-140), rootstock effects on whole plant physiology, rootstock development in novel crop applications and targeted gene manipulation of rootstocks to influence gene and trait expression in scions. The Working Group Rootstock Breeding and Evaluation aims represent a nexus of varied horticultural research disciplines including genetics, physiology, mechanization, bioengineering, production systems, genomics/metabolomics, remote sensing and digital agriculture.