Small Fruit Breeding Program
About the Program
The Small Fruit Breeding program develops new raspberry and strawberry cultivars for the Pacific Northwest small fruit industry. Our focus is on new raspberry cultivars that combine machine harvestability, root rot tolerance, raspberry bushy dwarf virus (RBDV) resistance with favorable fruit characteristics of flavor, color, firmness, and cohesiveness. The goal of the strawberry breeding program is to develop June-bearing strawberry cultivars with excellent fruit quality for both the processing and fresh markets.
Thirteen raspberry cultivars and thirteen strawberry cultivars have been released by WSU in the last 85 years, which enjoys strong support from Washington and Oregon berry commissions. We have close cooperative relationships with the two other berry breeding programs in the region, USDA-Corvallis and Agriculture Agri-Food Canada in BC.