Heritability and parental breeding value estimates of abrasion-induced skin discolouration on pear fruit

• Published in: Acta horticulturae no. 9091; pp. 127 - 135
• Main Authors: Brewer, L.R, Morgan, C.G.T, Alspach, P.A, Volz, R.K
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Society for Horticultural Science 2011
• Subjects: breeding; breeding value; cultivars; discoloration; genetic correlation; heritability; parents; pears; screening; seedlings
• ISSN: 0567-7572

Abrasion-induced skin discolouration (scuffing) on pear fruit is a major problem for many cultivars. Skin blemishes, which can vary from slight browning to severe blackening depending on cultivar, diminish consumer appeal and can make the fruit unsalable. The blemishes can be caused by poor handling at harvest, during packing or transport, or at retail by the consumer. Breeding new cultivars with high resistance to scuffing is one means of eliminating the problem. The Plant & Food Research’s pear breeding programme began post-storage screening of seedling populations for susceptibility to induced scuffing in 2008. We analysed results from 68 families representing 40 parents of European and Asian pear origins. Numbers of individuals tested per family varied from one to over 1000 over two seasons. Mixed modelling of the scuffing data indicated a high genetic correlation between the two years (0.97) and a high narrow-sense heritability (0.72). We postulate that Chinese pear accessions were source(s) of resistance to scuffing in the breeding programme while accessions from European pear were more susceptible.