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- Author or Editor: Stephen Stringer x
We evaluated relationships between floral traits of 23 genotypes of southern blueberries and indices of pollination efficiency (fruit set, fruit abortion, seed number, and berry size) for Osmia ribifloris Cockerell, a manageable solitary bee. Flower size in Vaccinium and presumably ovary size were proportional to berry size, except for the tiny blooms of one V. tenellum clone (NC7808), which produce large commercial-sized berries of ≈2 g. Longer-styled blueberry flowers visited by O. ribifloris produced the heaviest berries with the most seeds. Osmia ribifloris reliably pollinated ‘Climax’ and ‘Tifblue’ rabbiteye blueberries. However, the peculiarly misshapen blooms of ‘Premier’ rabbiteye blueberry receive less pollination from O. ribifloris and yield berries containing 25% fewer seeds. Fruit set for these misshapen ‘Premier’ flowers was equivalent to that of intact flowers indicating that this floral polymorphism would not greatly alter cultivar performance. For seven Vaccinium species, wild and cultivated alike, 80% to 100% of a plant’s fruit production depends on efficient cross-pollination by bees such as O. ribifloris.
Ornamental blueberries are increasing in popularity in southern landscaping due to their attractive foliage and also since they provide food and serve as attractants to birds and other wildlife. `Native Blue', tested as MS611, resulted from a cross of two native diploid Vaccinium darowii clones, Florida 4B X US 799. US 799 was selected from seedlings grown from open-pollinated seed collected by Dr. Paul Lyrene in Ocala National Forest, Florida. The Cross was made by Dr. Arlen Draper and selected in the greenhouse in 1987. Plants of `Native Blue' are low growing, compact, and finely branched with small, glaucous leaves and are quite typical of V. darowii. In test plots in Mississippi, the plants set many small berries and after four years have have grown to a height of approximately 18 inches. Desireable characteristics include beautiful pastel foliage, hardy and vigorous plants producing much fruit that are attractive to native birds.
A study was initiated in November, 2002 to determine the effects of exposing two Southern Highbush blueberries (Vaccinium corybosum L) to artificial chilling hours on initiation of bud break and advancement of floral and vegetative bud maturity. Plants of `Jubilee' and `Misty' were divided into 2 groups in which one was left outdoors, allowing chilling to occur and accumulate naturally, while the other group was placed in a growth chamber set at a constant artificial temperature of 4 °C. Five plants of each cultivar were then placed into a heated greenhouse after 0, 200, 400, 600, or 800 hours of chilling (total hours of exposure to <5 °C) had accumulated for forcing of flower bud development. The progression of floral bud development of the terminal three buds on five tagged stems was observed at 7-10 day intervals for 30 days. At the end of the forcing period observations were also made on total percent vegetative and floral bud break. Prior to accumulating sufficient chilling requirements, chilling delivery method did not appear to influence the rate of floral bud development since none advanced past stage 3 regardless of chilling regime used. However after chilling requirements were met, flower buds of plants that were allowed to chill naturally developed more quickly than did those chilled by artificial means.
The consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables has always been known to provide essential nutrition to mankind and, both anecdotally and clinically, has been linked to the prevention or alleviation of chronic diseases. The muscadine grape, a fruit native to the southeastern U.S., contains numerous phenolic compounds that act as antioxidants and also other compounds, such as resveratrol, that acts as a chemopreventative. The concentrations of these compounds present in the muscadine grape equal or exceed that known for any other small fruit. Fruit of selected muscadine grape genotypes, including breeding lines and cultivars, were evaluated over a 2-year period to assess the existing genetic base for these nutraceutical compounds. Results demonstrated that concentrations of total phenolics, ellagic acid, and resveratrol differ significantly among cultivars and breeding lines. These results suggest that it should be possible to breed for increased concentrations of the health-promoting compounds in muscadine grapes.
To improve the quality of berries during handling and shipping, blueberry breeders have strived to develop a fruit that is firm in texture. However, some previous studies have suggested that blueberry cultivars with firmer fruit were more susceptible to splitting. This study was conducted to further investigate the correlation between splitting susceptibility and fruit firmness. Various cultivars and selections of rabbiteye (Vaccinium ashei) and southern highbush (interspecific hybrids primarily consisting of V. corymbosum) blueberry were used to determine whether berries displaying higher fruit firmness also have a higher incidence of splitting. Three distinctly different measurements of berry firmness were obtained using two instruments: QTS25 and FirmTech2. Berries were subsequently submitted to laboratory procedures to induce splitting. In general, firmness measured as either deformation (FirmTech2) or modulus of elasticity (QTS25) correlated with splitting tendencies. There are exceptions, however, that need to be further examined.
Muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia) is the first native North American grape to be domesticated. During the past century, breeding programs have created a large collection of muscadine cultivars. Muscadine cultivars are usually identified by evaluating morphological traits and checking breeding records, which can be ambiguous and unauthentic. During this study, simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers were used to generate DNA fingerprinting profiles to identify muscadine cultivars and verify their reported pedigrees. Eighty-nine Vitis accessions were genotyped using 20 SSRs from 13 linkage groups. From these, 81 unique subgenus Muscadinia accessions were identified, and a core set of five SSR markers was able to distinguish all of them. Eighteen misidentifications were found, and five previously unknown accessions were matched with cultivars in the dataset. The profiles of 12 cultivars were not consistent with their reported parentage–progeny relationships. Genetic diversity was analyzed at four levels: all V. rotundifolia cultivars (N = 67); current cultivars (N = 39); historical cultivars (N = 28); and wild V. rotundifolia accessions (N = 9). There was substantial genetic diversity in both wild and historically cultivated muscadines. The principle coordinate analysis (PCoA) showed clear separation among subgenus Vitis cultivars, wild muscadine accessions, and cultivated muscadines, with PCoA1 and PCoA2 explaining 11.0% and 9.3% of the total variation, respectively.
Breeding blueberry cultivars with enhanced fruit quality requires simple, accurate, and cost-effective assays to select individuals from segregating populations. In this study, berry diameter, berry weight, firmness, pH, total polyphenol, total acids, D-glucose, D-fructose, total glucose, and total sugar content were quantified in 188 southern highbush blueberry selections and cultivars over 2 years. Significant variation between years, genotype, and year × genotype interaction was detected for all traits. Glucose and fructose were the predominant sugars, and they were in a range of 32.14–64.72 and 28.61–69.63 mg/mL, respectively. Total sugars content ranged from 62.22 to 131.15 mg/mL. Correlation analysis showed a strong positive correlation between total sugar content measured with the discrete analyzer and total soluble solids assessed as Brix (r2 = 0.96). In addition, glucose, fructose, and total glucose showed high and positive correlation between them and with the total sugar content. The titratable acidity was positively correlated with total acids (r2 = 0.60) and strong positive correlation between berry diameter and berry weight (r2 = 0.94) was detected. Principal component analysis (PCA) showed that PC1 explained 44.9% of the variation and the major contributing traits for diversity were D-fructose, D-glucose, total glucose, and total sugars. PC2 accounted for 21.2% of the variation and was mainly attributed to berry weight and diameter. Cluster analysis showed that the blueberry genotypes fell into two major groups. Cluster-I comprised genotypes with the highest amounts of total acids, pH, polyphenol, D-glucose, D-fructose, total glucose, and total sugar, whereas Cluster-II has genotypes with distinctly lower amounts of tested compounds and larger berries. Information obtained from this study is critical to identify superior genotypes for future crosses and advance evaluation. In addition, the firmness tester and discrete analyzer used in this study were invaluable in improving the efficiency and precision of phenotyping.
Preharvest rainfall that occurs when fruit are fully ripe or approaching full ripeness can result in detrimental fruit splitting in rabbiteye and southern highbush blueberries. This study was initiated to develop a laboratory method to model rain-related incidence of splitting in cultivated blueberries with the goal of predicting the incidence of splitting in blueberry cultivars and selections. Multiyear field surveys of rabbiteye and southern highbush cultivars show that the incidence of rain-related splitting is strongly cultivar-dependent. Laboratory values for forced splitting and naturally occurring rain-related field splitting data show a strong correlation indicating that the incidence of fruit splitting can be accurately estimated by this laboratory method. Soaking the berries in distilled water 14 h at room temperature gives a confident determination of splitting tendencies. Blueberry breeders and geneticists can use this method to evaluate new potential blueberry cultivars for splitting tendencies as part of routine screening. This would lead to a long-term goal of reducing splitting susceptible blueberry cultivars in commercial plantings.