PROGRESS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF RASPBERRY CULTIVARS SUITED TO MACHINE HARVEST AND PROCESS MARKETS IN THE PACIFIC NORTH WEST

The New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Limited and Northwest Plant Company established a raspberry breeding programme in Lynden, Washington, USA in 1999. The programme’s aim is to breed and select superior machine harvest cultivars adapted to the Pacific North West. Main breeding objectives include high machine harvested yield, improved fruit firmness, good fruit flavour, dark fruit colour, high fruit soluble solids and disease resistance. ‘Wakefield’ raspberry is a recent release from the programme. We present comparative data on the performance of ‘Wakefield’ which we have observed to have significant advantages in terms of fruit yield, fruit quality and disease resistance over ‘Meeker’ raspberry which is currently the main cultivar grown in the Pacific North West. ‘Wakefield’ pedigree is complex and includes genetic contribution from Rubus idaeus, R. strigosus, and R. pileatus.