Sustaining the supply of high quality blueberry by leveraging applied
breeding, genetics and genomics
Hamid Ashrafi
North Carolina State University
Department of horticultural Science
hamidashrafi@ncsu.edu
Blueberry, is one of the most economically important crops in the dicot family Ericaceae. It is a nutrient
dense small fruit consumed in the United State and elsewhere in the world. North Carolina is ranked 5th
in the nation for highbush blueberry production with the annual cash price of about $70M on 5,500
acres. Blueberries are mainly grown in the southeast and coastal areas of NC due to better soil
adaptability (sandy and acidic soil) and favorable environment. In 2015, the total production of
blueberries in NC was at 14,832 mT (33,700,000 lb) of conventional fresh blueberries and 167 mT
(370,000 lb) of organic fresh blueberries.
North Carolina State University has a long history of blueberry breeding and variety development. In the
early 1930s, collaboration with USDA in New Jersey started, mainly due to loss of cultivars that were
infected by stem canker fungus. The causal agent of stem canker is the fungus Botryosphaeria cortices,
which is native to the coastal plain of the southeastern US. The first stem canker resistant cultivar
developed was Wolcott in the 1950s. Wolcott’s resistance broke down quickly and it was replaced by
Croatan. In the 1970s, the introduction of southern highbush cultivars played an important role in NCSU
blueberry breeding. Two cultivars, O’Neal and Reveille are among the most successful southern
highbush cultivars introduced since then. The improved adaptation and superior fruit quality of southern
highbush types continues to dominate breeding efforts today (J. A. Ballington Pers. Comm.).
North Carolina State University has a successful track record of releasing blueberry cultivars. Until
recently all breeding efforts at NCSU blueberry breeding program were mainly focused on traditional
breeding which has been resulted in the release of 11 standard highbush, 16 southern highbush, 11
rabbiteye, 2 pentaploids and 4 ornamental blueberries. With the advent of modern breeding methods
and sequencing technologies the conventional breeding can be practiced in a more efficient and faster
pace. Development of DNA markers associated with desirable traits and application of marker assisted
selection can facilitate development of new varieties in a shorter time. This talk aims to introduce the
past, present and future trends of the program to audience and to demand for identifying collaborators
across all disciplines to breed for higher yield, higher quality, disease and pasts resistant, and machine
harvest adapted blueberries.