Location: Crop Diseases, Pests and Genetics Research
Project Number: 2034-21220-007-007-T
Project Type: Trust Fund Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: May 1, 2017
End Date: Sep 30, 2019
Objective:
1. Develop seedless table grapes ripening throughout the maturity season, having white, red and black fruit, and fruit quality characteristics exceeding those of existing cultivars. Emphasis will be placed on developing new white and red seedless grapes that ripen during the early season.
2. Develop seedless table grapes with durable powdery mildew resistance and commercial fruit quality.
3. Produce, package and store for evaluation, advanced table grape selections from breeding program and competing cultivars. Provide fruit quality results for applied cultural treatments to assist in grower evaluations of advanced selections at California Table Grape Committee (CTGC) Research Committee meetings scheduled during the growing season.
4. Evaluate table grape material segregating for powdery mildew resistance developed by ARS breeding program for fruit quality traits. Emphasis will be placed on early ripening and cluster architecture.
Approach:
Standard breeding methods are being used in this breeding program. Methods involve selecting accessions having the most desirable combination of characters, hybridizing those accessions, and selecting the most elite offspring and testing them as potential varieties. Breeding efficiency is enhanced through the standard use of embryo culture to produce progenies from seedless x seedless crosses. Advanced selections are tested in demonstration plots to determine commercial potential relative to competing cultivars. Powdery mildew resistance will be incorporated into high quality table grape germplasm through direct hybridization. Selection for powdery mildew resistance in appropriate progenies will initially occur in the greenhouse at the seedling stage. Powdery mildew resistant seedlings will then be transplanted to field sites where fungicides are not used for further evaluation.
