Advancing the Development of Seed-propagated Hybrid Varieties in Organic Strawberry
Project Director
Lisa L. Mahoney
Year Funded
2017
Award Number
2017-51300-27292
Funded Institution
University of New Hampshire
Grant Program
OREI (Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative)
Project Overview
Commercial strawberry production utilizes asexually propagated bare-root starts purchased from suppliers who must use chemicals to manage pathogens, whose production schedules constrain growers’ planting dates, and who do not offer varieties selected for organic systems. This project addressed these hurdles by developing seed-propagated F-1 hybrid strawberry lines with priority traits for organic producers including vigor, disease resistance, and fruit quality and yield. Phenotypic (trait-based) selection was complemented with DNA analysis and marker-assisted breeding (MAB) to develop improved inbred lines and make F1 hybrid crosses for short-day flowering and day-neutral strawberries.
The project team developed multiple inbred lines and selected them through four to six generations of self-pollination. Strong hybrid vigor was achieved through crosses between distantly related inbred parents. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted plans to conduct on-farm trials of the best F1 hybrids grown from seed. Virtual presentations and an August 2021 field day generated considerable farmer interest in hosting future on-farm trials.
Farmer Takeaways
(1) Strawberry breeders have made substantial progress toward F1 hybrid strawberry cultivars suited to organic production in northern New England.
(2) These hybrids can be grown from seed to yield fully organic starts that can be produced on farm in accord with growers’ planting schedules.
(3) Farmers in the region have expressed strong interest in this approach to organic strawberry breeding and production.
Project Outputs
Davis, T.M., Yang, Y., Mahoney, L., & Frailey, D.C. (2020). A pentaploid-based linkage map of the ancestral octoploid strawberry Fragaria virginiana reveals instances of sporadic hyper-recombination. Horticulture Research 7:77, 15.
Iezzoni, A. F., McFerson, J., Luby, J., Gasic, K., Whitaker, V., Bassil, N., Yue, C., Gallardo, K., McCracken, V., Coe, M., Hardner, C., Zurn, J. D., Hokanson, S., van de Weg, E., Jung, S., Main, D., da Silva Linge, C., Vanderzande, S., Davis, T. M., … Peace, C. (2020). RosBREED: bridging the chasm between discovery and application to enable DNA-informed breeding in rosaceous crops. Horticulture Research, 7, 177.
Rijal, S. (2020) The development of knowledge and resources relevant to the genetic manipulation of day neutral flowering habit in strawberry, UNH Agriculture, Nutrition and Food Systems Master’s Thesis.