The Scottish Society for Crop Research and SCRI hosted the soft fruit event ‘Modern soft fruit breeding/industry – the way forward’ at SCRI on 2 November 2007. The event was chaired by Andrew Logan.

The keynote lecture ‘Changes in the Raspberry Industry – a breeder’s perspective’ was given by Mrs Victoria Knight, Leader of the Raspberry Breeding Group at East Malling Research, East Malling, Kent.

The main points of her lecture were as follows.

• There has been rapid change to the raspberry industry in the past 35 years.
• In UK most crops are for the fresh market.
• Introduction of new cultivars have widened the harvest period, especially primocane fruiting cultivars.
• Developments in production methods including handling, shipping, introduction of polythene tunnels and reliance on imported labour have improved efficiency.
• Producer organisations in the UK and Europe have a major role in shaping the raspberry industry.
• Breeding is a long term exercise and worldwide there has been a reduction in number of programmes.
• Berries are being actively promoted and this has greatly increased the public’s awareness and interest in healthy eating.
• Raspberries have been identified as good sources of several chemicals that are reputed to be amongst the best defence against a range of common diseases.

Other presentations

The keynote lecture was followed by two short presentations.

• Screening for winter chill requirement in Blackcurrant - Lyn Jones (University of Dundee) and Rex Brennan (SCRI)
• Breeding for healthier rasps - new approaches, old problems - Gordon McDougall (SCRI)

Poster presentations

A range of poster presentations were given following the speakers.

• PDF file: Does Phytophthora idaei pose a threat to the raspberry crop? - Vanessa Young, David Cooke, Hugh Barker and Alison Dolan (404 KB)
• PDF file: Metabolomic approach to identifying bioactive compounds in berries - Inger Martinussen, Gordon McDougall and Derek Stewart (299 KB)
• PDF file: Colon-available raspberry extract exhibits anti-cancer effects on in vitro models of colon cancer – Emma Coates, Gina Popa, Mark McCann, Chris Gill, Gordon McDougall, Derek Stewart, Ian Rowland (177 KB)
• PDF file: Diagnosis of virus diseases of raspberry using new sequence information - Stuart MacFarlane and Wendy McGavin (346 KB)
• PDF file: Making sure your prey eat well: parasitoids prefer aphids that feed on good host plants – Carolyn Mitchell, Stephen Hubbard, Nick Birch, Stuart Gordon (645 KB)
• PDF file: Breeding crops with built in pest resistance – Nick Birch (420 KB)
• PDF file: Marker assisted breeding – Julie Graham (353 KB)
• PDF file: Statistical contribution by BioSS to soft fruit research at SCRI - Christine Hackett, Katrin MacKenzie, Jim McNicol (349 KB)

A full report of the event is available on the SSCR website soft fruit articles page.