VacciniumCAP, a community-based project to develop advanced genetic tools to improve fruit quality in blueberry and cranberry

The VacCAP project, funded in 2019 by the United States Department of Agriculture, is a transdisciplinary research effort to develop marker-assisted breeding capacity in blueberry and cranberry breeding programs, enabling the selection and pyramiding of desirable fruit characteristics and thereby enhancing fruit quality and market value. Project teams include US and international scientists and breeders. The project objectives are to: 1) establish genomic resources to enable effective association mapping studies in blueberry and cranberry; 2) identify DNA markers associated with fruit quality characteristics in blueberry and cranberry; 3) deliver molecular, genetic and genomic resources to improve fruit quality traits in blueberry and cranberry; 4) assess the potential socio-economic impact of blueberry and cranberry fruit quality improvements on market demand; and 5) engage Vaccinium stakeholders to transfer advanced phenomic and genomic tools to build an efficient cultivar development system. An overview of the project rational, objectives and updates/outcomes from the first two years of activities will be presented.