2012 - Washington Red Raspberry Commission

Project No:
Title: Red Raspberry Cultivar Development
Personnel: Chaim Kempler, Research Scientist, Michael Dossett, Visiting Fellow
Brian Harding and Georgia Kliever, Technicians
Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Pacific Agri-Food Research Centre, PO Box 1000, 6947 #7
Hwy. Agassiz, BC, Canada, V0M 1A0, Chaim.Kempler@agr.gc.ca Tel: 604-796-1716 Fax:
604-796-0359 cell: 604-819-0175
Reporting Period: 2010-2013
Accomplishments:
• Began machine-harvesting replicated plots at the Clearbrook substation to evaluate
machine-harvestability and yield of advanced selections.
• Tested and released BC 92-9-15 to propagators. This selection is resistant to root rot
and has high-quality early season fruit suitable for fresh market or machine-harvest.
While it has been slow to propagate in tissue culture, we hope that larger numbers of
this selection will be available for trial in the next year or so.
• Released BC 90-19-34 and BC 93-16-43 as publically available germplasm for
breeding. These two selections represent new sources of resistance to root rot and
aphids, and BC 93-16-43 represents a new source of resistance to RBDV as well.
• Developed and validated a semi-hydroponic system for assessing root rot resistance in
the greenhouse. This system not only allows for cycling root rot trials more quickly
but also is based on visual ratings of root symptoms rather than ratings of aboveground
symptoms as in traditional methods. To date more than 250 selections have
been evaluated using this method.
• Identified 7 biotypes of the raspberry aphid and 3 new sources of resistance. This has
led to reassessing strategies for selecting for aphid resistance in the future.
• Initiated work aimed at developing molecular markers linked to root rot resistance,
aphid resistance and RBDV resistance.
Results:
• More than 20 selections were identified as having good machine harvestability and
some potential for processing. Some of these have already been propagated and have
been planted at Randy Honcoop’s farm for further machine-harvest evaluations; others
are still being propagated for testing on farms in BC and Washington.
• Strong resistance to root rot was identified in more than 100 selections. Some of these
also have resistance to RBDV. Many of these represent far-from-market germplasm
for use in further breeding but many represent elite lines with potential and will be
evaluated further for machine-harvestability.
• Every source of aphid resistance currently represented in raspberry cultivars from the
PNW has been broken by at least one of 7 aphid biotypes we have identified. More
research is needed to learn how widespread and problematic some of these biotypes
are, but it no longer makes sense for the program to screen all seedlings for resistance.
Efforts will focus on identifying which resistance category elite selections fall into,
029