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Pear breeding

Dr. David Hunter is part of a national team of plant breeders at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) who develop new varieties of horticultural and field crops, from fruits and vegetables to soybeans, oilseeds, cereals and forages. Currently working out of Vineland Station in the Ontario Niagara region, Dr. Hunter has been developing new cultivars and selections of pears at AAFC for both the fresh and processing markets since 1988. His goal is to create pears with improved tolerance to fire blight, a major pear disease worldwide, and provide new pear cultivars to extend the harvest and marketing seasons. His research also emphasizes orchard management strategies such as improved performance of rootstocks and training systems to meet industry requirements for smaller tree size and high density production for both fresh market and processing varieties.

Pear Breeding Process

Pear breeding is a slow, methodical process - it can take up to 25 years to introduce a new variety. Crosses are made each year between selected pear cultivars, some with desirable fruit and tree characteristics, and others with enhanced levels of disease resistance. The resulting seedlings are screened for resistance to fire blight by deliberately inoculating them in the greenhouse with high doses of fire blight bacteria. If the infection lesions exceed a certain length, seedlings are discarded. Often, 75% or more of the seedlings from certain crosses are eliminated because of poor resistance.

Seedling trees that survive this screening test are planted in the field, and they then have a long juvenile phase - up to 10 years - followed by two to three years of fruiting and propagating tests, followed by more years of testing in the orchard. If a new variety does have high fire blight resistance, its taste may not appeal to consumers. There are only five to six pear cultivars that are popular on a worldwide basis, and 90% of all cultivars are susceptible to fire blight.

History of Pear Breeding

Originally, federal pear breeding in Ontario began at AAFC's Research Centre in Harrow in 1962, but was transferred to Vineland Station in the Niagara region of Ontario in 1995. With their roots still linked to the pear orchards in Harrow, new pear cultivars from this breeding research are given the prefix 'Har' or 'Harrow'.

AAFC has introduced several new pear cultivars, such as Harrow Delight and Harvest Queen in the early 1980s, Harrow Sweet in 1990, and AC Harrow Crisp and AC Harrow Gold in 2002/03. Two new pear cultivars are scheduled to be released in 2007/08. All have improved resistance to fire blight as compared to Bartlett pears, but none are totally immune.

Dr. Hunter has also been involved in evaluating trees in seedling orchards in Kentville, Nova Scotia, to identify promising selections with the right combination of tree and fruit characteristics. With promising selections from both Vineland and Kentville, Dr. Hunter is hoping to continue the regional evaluation orchards in these provinces and expand a similar breeding research in British Columbia. This would help him test the new cultivars in the three main pear-growing regions in Canada and provide local information to help producers include the new cultivars in their orchards.