2012 - Washington Red Raspberry Commission

Project No:
Title: Cooperative raspberry cultivar development program
Personnel: Chad Finn, Research Geneticist
USDA-ARS, HCRL; 3420 NW Orchard Ave. Corvallis, OR 97330
Reporting Period: 2012
Accomplishments: Our goal is develop raspberry cultivars that either are improvements over the
current standards or that will complement them. In addition, the information generated on
advanced selections from the WSU and BC programs will be made available and aid in making
decisions on the commercial suitability of their materials. ‘Vintage’ has been released.
‘Lewis’ and ORUS 1142-1 are being propagated for grower trials as floricane fruiters and ORUS
4090-1 and ORUS 4090-2 as primocane fruiters. ORUS 1040-1 did not hold up well in machine
harvest trial in Lynden, WA and is being discarded. Five selections have been propagated for
planting in machine harvest trial in Lynden. We have 23 floricane fruiting and 19 primocane
fruiting red raspberry selections from our crosses in trial, in addition to numerous WSU and BC
selections. ORUS 3239-1, ORUS 3696-1, ORUS 3700-2, and ORUS 3722-1 were identified as
having excellent root rot resistance in Puyallup. Of these, ORUS 3722-1 has excellent
commercial potential and is being propagated for Washington machine harvest trial; it also has
an RBDV resistant parent. We made 37 red raspberry crosses, over 50% of our Rubus crossesnot
sure how that happened but don’t tell the blackberry guys! ; )
Results: Thirty seven red raspberry and 12 black raspberry crosses were successfully made in
spring 2012. A new seedling field was established containing red raspberry, black raspberry and
blackberry seedlings. Forty three red raspberry selections were made (17 floricane, 17 primocane,
9 germplasm). The selections were mostly made as potential cultivars however several are
germplasm selections with a wild Midwest R. idaeus parent in their background. We have been
working with Asian germplasm for several generations and it is now nearly cultivar quality with
some parental material displaying good root rot tolerance. We hope this material will be useful to
our program as well as to Pat Moore’s and Chaim Kempler’s. Table RY1 lists the genotypes that
were harvested in 2012 or will be harvested in 2013. Presented in Tables RY2-RY5 are the
results from 2012. ORUS 4090-1 and ORUS 4090-2 are being propagated for trial in addition to
ORUS 1142-1 and ‘Lewis’. ORUS 3239-1, ORUS 3696-1, ORUS 3700-2, and ORUS 3722-1
were identified as having excellent root rot resistance in Puyallup. Of these, ORUS 3722-1 has
excellent commercial potential and is being propagated for Washington machine harvest trial; it
also has an RBDV resistant parent.
While not directly related to red raspberry at first glance, our efforts in black raspberry
have identified verticillium wilt resistance and aphid resistance (that should translate into virus
resistance for the aphid transmitted viruses). While verticillium has not been a problem in the
past there was some concern raised in 2012 that there may be more problems with verticillium
than we were aware. If these sources of resistance hold up they can be moved into red raspberry
especially if there are molecular markers to identify genotypes with resistance.
Publications: Patent for ‘Vintage’ was filed. Until a new cultivar is released and the notice
published in a scientific journal, results from our trial are mostly presented informally in
Commission reports and oral presentations.
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