Project Number: 5358-21000-033-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Jun 06, 2003
End Date: Apr 15, 2008

Objective:
1) Conserve global genetic resources for the assigned fruit and nut crops; perform pathogen testing- and elimination- procedures and confirm botanical and horticultural identities; 2) Develop new or improved short-, medium-, and long-term preservation procedures for the assigned genetic resources. We hypothesize that changes in visible, infrared color, or in chlorophyll florescence of key nodal regions of stored shoot cultures will correlate to the health of the plants. We hypothesize that Humulus germplasm will respond to cryopreservation protocols in a manner similar to Pyrus; 3) Apply and develop molecular marker-based approaches for fingerprinting and genetic diversity assessment of pears, blueberries, brambles, hazelnuts, and other minor fruit and nut crop genera. Hypothesis: The infraspecific groups in Pyrus and Corylus revealed by SSR analyses will be congruent with those based on morphological data, and will be strongly associated with geographical provenance. Hypothesis: Patterns of SSR allele occurrence can serve as unique "fingerprints" for accurately identifying specific accessions, and detecting suspected accession duplication, in Vaccinium, Pyrus, and Corylus. 4) Distribute plant genetic resources of temperate-adapted fruits, nuts, and specialty crops; transfer technology and genetic resource information through public databases (GRIN), web pages, scientific publications and non-technical articles.

Approach:
The NCGR-Corvallis will conserve global genetic resources for hazelnuts, strawberries, hops, mint, currants, gooseberries, blackberries, raspberries, hybrid berries, blueberries, cranberries, lingonberries, kiwifruit, pawpaws, juneberries, mountain ash, quince, elderberries, and graft- or cross- compatible relatives and other edible fruits. Eight genera have priority (Corylus, Fragaria, Humulus, Mentha, Pyrus Ribes, Rubus, and Vaccinium). Other minor genera new crops are given second priority. Core collections have priority in preservation efforts. Clones of temperate fruit nut and specialty crops will be stored in field, screenhouses, greenhouse, tissue culture, cryogenic preservation, and as seeds will be stored in freezers. Primary collection will be kept in field genebanks; berry and specialty crops will be kept in screenhouses. Two plants will be kept for each core accession in the primary location. One plant will be maintained in the primary locations for non-core. The members of core will be evaluated periodically by the curator and crop germplasm committees (CGC). In-vitro cultures stored at 4C provide alternative storage and backup for plants. Objective measures of plant growth and metabolism will be studied and correlated with the length of storage of in-vitro cultures. Studies will focus on several types of machine vision for analysis of the stored plants. Cryopreservation techniques will be used for long-term preservation of several genera of fruit and nut crops. Our lab will use microsatellite markers in the genetic variation and fingerprinting studies of pear, blueberry, brambles and hazelnut. Primers developed in apple will be used to study pear. Microsatellites will assist in cultivar identification and developing fingerprint databases for strawberry, hops, and pear. Genetic diversity will be studied to detecting duplications or gaps in each collection. We will develop S-allele specific primers for identifying the S-allele genotype in pears. In blueberry, primers designed from expressed sequence tags (ESTs) will evaluate genetic diversity and unique genes. Between 2,000 and 3,000 accessions will be distributed annually to international requestors. Background information on new accessions, and evaluation information on existing accessions, voucher records including image files, will be entered onto GRIN. Additional educational and scientific resources will be added to the home web site. Repository staff will inform the public of research, information, and techniques for germplasm preservation will provide training workshops and seminars. Research results will be published in scientific journals. Germplasm resources in NPGS will be promoted at professional meetings, commodity group meetings and at Universities and grade schools. Professional and student groups will be given tours, and students of many levels will be mentored in the horticulture and genetic conservation activities. Formerly 5358-21000-029-00D (5/03).