Genetic parameters and development of a selection index for breeding red raspberries for processing

New commercial red raspberry (Rubus idaeus) cultivars suited to machine-harvesting and processing markets need to be high-yielding and have good fruit quality attributes, including fruit firmness, sugar content, acidity, flavor, and health properties. Combining many traits in one genotype is a challenge for breeders, especially for traits negatively correlated with yield. Despite its potential, the use of multiple-trait selection through selection indices has had limited application in fruit breeding. In this study, we estimated variance components, heritabilities, phenotypic and genetic correlations and breeding values for total yield (TYLD), harvest span, mid-harvest day and fruit quality traits, firmness (FIRM), soluble solids (SS), acidity (ACID), total anthocyanins (TACY), and total ellagitannins (TELG) from 1008 seedling genotypes based on 85 families derived from 45 parents harvested over three seasons in Washington state. Narrow-sense heritability estimates ranged from moderately low (0.22 for TYLD) to moderately high (0.73 for SS). All traits measured had positive genetic correlations with TYLD except for ACID (–0.35) and TACY (–0.28). Genotype x year (GxY) interaction was high for TYLD and low for fruit quality attributes FIRM, SS, ACID, TACY, and TELG, and interactions were higher between the first (2009) and second (2010) seasons than between the second (2010) and third (2011) seasons. Using economic weights and breeding values derived from multivariate analysis for TYLD, FIRM, SS, and TACY, we constructed a selection index designed to assist with multiple-trait selection for population improvement and the development of commercial raspberry cultivars