UC Davis receives grant to advance strawberry breeding and genetic tools

Although the strawberry industry has lagged behind crops like tomato and wheat in genetic and technical innovation, improved plant breeding, gene editing and other techniques are considered essential to ensure the sustainability of strawberry crops. Photo by Tetiana Bykovets on Unsplash

$6.2 million grant focuses on protecting crops in the future

The federal government is providing $6.2 million to the University of California, Davis, to study how to use genetic and breeding information to protect strawberry crops from future pests and diseases.

The four-year National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) grant focuses on addressing growing and emerging threats to strawberries, a popular fruit rich in vitamin C and essential to the diet of many Americans.

Improved plant breeding, gene editing and other technologies will be key to ensuring strawberry crops are sustainable in the face of climate change and possible restrictions on chemical use, Steve said. Knapp, director of the Strawberry Breeding Center and distinguished professor in the Department of Plant Sciences.

"We need the technology to be able to address the challenges that strawberries are facing around the world," Knapp said. "Can we use genetic knowledge to modify DNA in a specific way to get the resistance we need?"

USDA Funding

The grant award was one of 25 findings announced Oct. 5 by NIFA - an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture - as part of the Specialty Crop Research Initiative program, which addresses "key challenges in of national, regional and multi-state importance to sustaining all components of food and agriculture…,” the agency said.

The strawberry industry has lagged behind crops like tomatoes and wheat in genetic and technical innovation, Knapp said, and the subsidy means "now they want to get their foot on the accelerator".

A key priority is to determine whether modifying DNA molecules can improve disease resistance and what technologies would be needed. Ensuring that certain genes are expressed while others are deleted would be part of the analysis.

"We're trying to build natural resistance to pathogens through genes that already exist but could be modified with this knowledge," Knapp said. "If we could modify a gene that improves disease resistance, people would want us to use it in breeding."

The goal is to produce disease-resistant cultivars and identify better ways to diagnose, prevent and manage disease. The research project will also include economic forecasting assessing the consequences of production changes and communicating with farmers about the lab's progress, according to the grant proposal.

Gitta Coaker of Plant Pathology and Mitchell Feldmann, Marta Bjornson and Juan Debernardi of Plant Sciences are participating in the research, as are scientists from California Polytechnic State University, UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, UC Berkeley, University of Florida and USDA's Agricultural Research Service.

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Focus area tags: agriculture, food, innovation

Tags: Emily C. Dooley (4), gene editing (1), genetics (5), Gitta Coaker (1), grant (1), NIFA (3), Steve Knapp (1), strawberries (22 ) , Strawberry (1), Strawberry Breeding Center (1), UC Davis (45), USDA (13)