CAN BIOTECHNOLOGY HELP KIWIFRUIT BREEDERS?

Since early times, successful breeders have traditionally been characterised by their ability to observe plants and their behaviour closely, to see the opportunity in the odd one or two plants in their progeny and instinctively to create successful crosses from decades of experience. They are true artists with lifelong loyalty to goals that have long time frames, perhaps not even achievable in their lifetimes. The recent explosion in biotechnology has caused a revolution in the expectations of how soon a new commercially viable cultivar can be produced. Biotechnological tools and knowledge are generally expected to reduce time frames for generations, preselect plants for growing on, predict what crosses may be profitable, speed assessment and propagation of candidate cultivars, enhance exploitation of genetic material and so on. Does this take the passion and the art away from the breeder? This talk will discuss biotechnology and breeding using recent examples from the literature and relevant examples from kiwifruit.