Institut für Züchtungsforschung an Obst
Climatic changes in Germany have already led to a significant early flowering of tree fruit crops, significantly increasing the risk of blossom damage caused by spring frosts. This negatively affects yield stability and fruit quality. Breeding of productive, climate-adapted fruit cultivars is an important goal to keep the German commercial fruit-growing sector competitive and to guarantee the supply of domestic fruits to the population in the long term. The project focuses on the development of molecular markers for the cultivars apple, sweet and sour cherry, which can be used in practical breeding for marker-assisted selection of genotypes with adapted flowering time. For this purpose, the existing variability in fruit genetic resources of apple, sweet cherry, and sour cherry is to be recorded based on the phenotype within the framework of the project. For this purpose, extensive cultivar collections are available at the JKI in Dresden-Pillnitz in the institute's fruit gene bank. Additionally, there are various bi-parental cross populations from previous projects in which parent genotypes were used that differ greatly in the timing of flower bud development. This existing variability forms the basis for the identification of genetic factors underlying the different flowering behavior. Identification of the factors will be attempted in the cultivar collections using genome-wide association studies (GWAS). In parallel, the bi-parental cross populations will be used for QTL mapping studies. Following the GWAS and QTL studies, tightly-coupled and, if possible, PCR-based molecular markers will be derived for the identified loci. The markers developed in the project will then serve as innovative tools in future breeding programs.
Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture
