New Blueberry Breeder ‘Excited to be Here’

Jenyne Loarca, the new blueberry breeder for the USDA-ARS Horticultural Crops Production and Genetic Improvement Research Unit in Corvallis.

Jenyne Loarca, the new blueberry breeder for the USDA-Agricultural Research Service’s Horticultural Crops Production and Genetic Improvement Research Unit in Corvallis, made a special trip to Oregon to meet stakeholders and colleagues at the 2024 OSU Blueberry Field Day.

“I’m really excited to be here,” she said, noting that she is originally from the West Coast. “It’s great to be back after eight winters in the Midwest.”

Loarca, who started in early October, received her Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she worked with the USDA-ARS carrot breeding laboratory. She worked in cranberries over the last two years after securing a federal grant to explore the diversity of cranberry genomic resources for a post-doctoral fellowship.

“Dr. Loarca brings over a decade of experience in breeding specialty crops, genetic attributes and collaboration with VacCAP and Breeding Insight,” according to a press release announcing her appointment that was distributed at the field day. VacCAP, which stands for vaccinium coordinated agricultural project, is a national project with collaborators working to improve genotyping and phenotyping tools to help in the breeding process for vaccinium plants, a grouping that includes cranberries and blueberries.

Loarca’s appointment in Corvallis includes 15 percent strawberries and 85 percent blueberries.

At the OSU Blueberry Field Day, held July 24 at the North Willamette Research and Extension Center in Aurora, Loarca noted that her work in cranberries focused on many of the traits that are important in blueberries. “A lot of my work (in cranberries) has been focused on fruit quality and firmness, and I want to continue doing that work here,” she said.

She said she hopes to visit “as many blueberry growers as possible” in her first year. “Please view this is an invitation for you to invite me to your farm,” she said. “I can read the reports about what’s important to you, but it’s very different from showing up and seeing your farm and getting to know you and talking with you. So, that is something that is very important to me.”

Loarca replaces Claire Luby, who left for an assistant professor position at Montana State University in January of 2023.