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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Breeding
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1294570

Of Buds and Bits: A metaQTL Study Identifies Stable QTL for Berry Quality and Yield Traits in Cranberry Mapping Populations (Vaccinium macrocarpon Ait.)

Provisionally accepted
Andrew F. Maule Andrew F. Maule 1*Luis Diaz Garcia Luis Diaz Garcia 2Jenyne Loarca Jenyne Loarca 1Hector Lopez-Moreno Hector Lopez-Moreno 1Jennifer Johnson-Cicalese Jennifer Johnson-Cicalese 3Nicholi Vorsa Nicholi Vorsa 3Massimo Iorizzo Massimo Iorizzo 4Jeff Neyhart Jeff Neyhart 5Juan Zalapa Juan Zalapa 1,5,6*
  • 1 University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States
  • 2 University of California, Davis, Davis, California, United States
  • 3 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey, United States
  • 4 North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States
  • 5 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Washington, District of Columbia, United States
  • 6 Vegetable Crop Research Unit, Agricultural Research Service (USDA), Madison, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    For nearly two centuries, cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon Ait.) breeders have improved fruit quality and yield by selecting traits on fruiting stems, termed 'reproductive uprights'. Crop improvement is accelerating rapidly in contemporary breeding programs due to modern genetic tools and high throughput phenotyping methods, improving selection efficiency and accuracy. We conducted genotypic evaluation on 29 primary traits encompassing fruit quality, yield, and chemical composition in two full-sib cranberry breeding populations -CNJ02 (n=168) and CNJ04 (n=67)over three years. Genetic characterization was further performed on 11 secondary traits derived from these primary traits. For CNJ02, 170 major quantitative trait loci (QTL; R 2 ≥ 0.10) were found with interval mapping, 150 major QTL were found with model mapping, and 9 QTL were found to be stable across multiple years. In CNJ04, 69 major QTL were found with interval mapping, 81 major QTL were found with model mapping, and 4 QTL were found to be stable across multiple years. MetaQTL represent stable genomic regions consistent across multiple years, populations, studies, or traits. Seven multi-trait metaQTL were found in CNJ02, one in CNJ04, and one in the combined analysis of both populations. A total of 22 metaQTL were identified in cross-study, cross-population analyses using digital traits for berry shape and size (8 metaQTL), digital images for berry color (2 metaQTL), and three-study cross-analyses (12 metaQTL). Together, these metaQTL anchor high- throughput fruit quality phenotyping techniques to traditional phenotyping methods, validating stateof-the-art methods in cranberry phenotyping that will improve breeding accuracy, efficiency, and genetic gain in this globally significant fruit crop.

    Keywords: American cranberry, QTL, metaQTL, BLUP, phenotyping, perennial crops, Fruit breeding

    Received: 14 Sep 2023; Accepted: 31 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Maule, Diaz Garcia, Loarca, Lopez-Moreno, Johnson-Cicalese, Vorsa, Iorizzo, Neyhart and Zalapa. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Andrew F. Maule, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, 53715-1149, Wisconsin, United States
    Juan Zalapa, Vegetable Crop Research Unit, Agricultural Research Service (USDA), Madison, United States

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