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field day

Blueberries Rocking it with the USDA/OSU Breeding Program
by Chad Finn, Berry Breeder, USDA/ARS

It’s hard not to be excited after spending the first week of April in Florida at the International Horticultural Society’s Vaccinium Symposium. Three days of blueberry, cranberry and lingonberry research presentations, a day of touring the blueberry industry and then a couple days all alone with the University of Florida blueberry and strawberry breeders. It was great fun and I had great discussions outside the sessions with old and new friends. Seems like about a quarter of presentations were by Northwest researchers.

In my presentation I talked about what we’ve learned so far in research that the Oregon and Washington Blueberry Commissions have supported to try to get a handle on Blueberry shock virus (BlShV) and whether we can breed cultivars that are slow to get this virus.

The Oregon Blueberry Commission has been very supportive of selection/cultivar testing at OSU-NWREC through Bernadine Strik, and they and the Washington Blueberry Commission have added increased support for our breeding efforts in Corvallis. Our breeding program is now nearing maturity as we are predominantly using our selections as parents in crosses. We have lots of seedlings, selections and advanced selections in the fields and, most importantly, we have a couple of selections being propagated for grower trials and two newly released cultivars.

On the BlShV front, the Northwest Disease Handbook identified ‘Berkeley,’ ‘Bluegold,’ ‘Bluetta,’ ‘Duke,’ ‘Liberty,’ ‘Aurora,’ ‘Pemberton,’ ‘Rea,’ and ‘Elliott’ as being particularly susceptible, while ‘Bluecrop’ and ‘Bluejay’ were identified as cultivars where the virus was slower to infect and move through a field. In our work several very high quality northern highbush cultivars have been identified that appear to impart good levels of tolerance over many years including: Baby Blues, Bluecrop, Calypso, Darrow, G 344, Legacy, Perpetua and Toro. Legacy and Bluecrop have repeatedly been identified as either being slow or very slow to become BlShV+. In contrast, some high quality cultivars are rapidly infected and growers need to be aware of this for managing these cultivars and they should be used cautiously in breeding including: ‘Berkeley,’ ‘Bluegold,’ ‘Bluejay,’ ‘Brigitta Blue,’ ‘Cargo,’ ‘Nui,’ ‘Ozarkblue’ and ‘Spartan.’

Identifying ‘Bluejay’ as particularly susceptible contrasts with earlier assessments of this cultivar’s response to BlShV. Germplasm collected as V. corymbosum in Maine or V. constablaei in North Carolina are often BlShV- after many years in the field or in their offspring when they are used as a parent (e.g. Perpetua). The nature of the rate of field infection by BlShV is unknown. The V. angustifolium ‘Ashworth' and ‘Fundy’ and cultivars thought of as southern highbush (San Joaquin, Snowchaser, Springhigh), all bloom extremely early. Do they have genetic resistance or does the virus not move/infect readily during wetter and cooler conditions? The rabbiteye blueberries (V. virgatum) have yet to test positive in the NWREC trial, although some tested positive in Corvallis. They may have genetic resistance or their late flowering in the PNW may help them to escape the spread of BlShV since their bloom does not overlap that of infected highbush blueberries.

While we know there is no true resistance to BlShV, we are using this information to plan crosses to try to create selections that like ‘Bluecrop’ and ‘Baby Blues’ are very slow to become infected. If you would like to see a list of cultivars and selections that we have evaluated for the rate of BlShV, please contact me.

While this BlShV work may yield valuable results down the road, we want you to be aware of new plant materials that we have for you right now:

  • The ornamental ‘Perpetua’ was our first release a couple years ago. Marketed as part of the Brazelberry® line of edible ornamentals, ‘Perpetua’ is drop dead gorgeous in late summer and fall and fruits very strongly on new growth. After bearing a crop in June-July, the flower buds that have developed in July on the new growth break, flower and set fruit that ripens in August-September offering a stunning contrast to the dark green glossy leaves, flowers and green fruit. We have a follow up selection that is similar to ‘Perpetua’ that may also be released. The royalty stream will go straight back to support the development of cultivars for the commercial fruit industry in the Northwest.
  •  If your clientele wants small berries or typically buys lowbush fruit from eastern North America, they may want to look into ‘Baby Blues’ as a possible alternative. Yields are comparable or greater than ‘Draper’ and ‘Bluecrop.’ The fruit are very small (0.8 g), bright blue and very tasty, ideal for anything that lowbush blueberries are sold for. The fruit appear to machine harvest easily and were easier to harvest than ‘Draper.’ Seed and fruit set were reduced with controlled crosses comparing selfing with a bulked sample of pollen. The plant is as tall as your typical highbush plant, putting the fruit in a place where they are less likely to come in contact with deer, rabbit or other fecal material, but the lowbush heritage means the bush is dense with smaller canes.

  • ORUS 235-3 and ORUS 197-3 have been marked for grower trial. While they have been difficult to get free of viruses, we were excited to hear this week that we will have a couple hundred plants of ORUS 235-3 ready for planting in grower trials this fall. ORUS 235-3 has excellent fruit quality and size. The flavor is very aromatic and the fruit have a nice pop when eaten. Yields have been better than for ‘Bluecrop.’ Since it has the southern highbush ‘Palmetto’ as parent, it could be prone to winter problems, which is why you do grower trials. As an IQF product, it scored very well. Fruit are sweet (16.2% SS) with pH 3.5 and titratable acidity 6.6.

It is great to see everything coming together in the program with such terrific industry support. If you need any further information or want a list of the genotypes that are slow/fast to get BlShV, please let us know.



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