Objective:
1. Phenotyping fruit maturation and ripening behaviors including fruit firmness, crispness, ripening season, fruit size, and storability for 6-8 cultivars and selected seedlings in Pink Lady x Honeycrisp progeny, in a developmental stage-specific fashion. 2. Characterizing expression patterns of 20-25 previously identified candidate genes, implicated in plant hormone biosynthesis, transport and response by qRT-PCR method and analyzing their association with the specific traits of apple fruit ripening pattern and quality attributes.

Approach:
Apple fruit ripening behaviors and fruit quality attributes including ripening season, fruit firmness and fruit size will be characterized for selections in a "Pink Lady x Honeycrisp” progeny. Documents Trust with WA Tree Fruit Research Commission. Log 40944. The expression patterns of 20-25 previously identified candidate genes, implicated in plant hormone biosynthesis, transport and response will be analyzed by qRT-PCR method. Association of expression with the specific traits of apple fruit ripening pattern and quality attributes will be assessed. Formerly 5350-43000-005-23T (7/10).