STORY LEAD:
ARS Investigate Genes Involved in Forming Plum Pits
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ARS News Service
Agricultural Research Service, USDA
Sharon Durham, (301) 504-1611, sharon.durham@ars.usda.gov
April 21, 2009
--View this report online, plus photos and related stories, at
www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr
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Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists are making progress in
determining the genes that control pit formation in plums--the first
step in a project to develop pitless varieties of this fruit.
ARS molecular biologists Chris Dardick and Ann Callahan and Prunus
breeder Ralph Scorza at the ARS Appalachian Fruit Research Station in
Kearneysville, W.Va., discovered that a set of genes necessary for
production of lignin is rapidly turned on specifically in pit
tissue--not the flesh or skin--just before hardening. Then these genes
quiet down just as quickly after the stone hardens.
Lignin is a material involved in the formation of pits in stone fruit.
Fruit pits consist of the seed and the hard woody material, or stone,
surrounding the seed.
The researchers' goal is to establish techniques to stop the genes'
activity and prevent hardening of the pit, thus producing a pitless
plum that would be more appealing to consumers. Pitless fruit would be
a premium product that could provide higher income for growers and
could increase consumption of these nutritious foods.
The idea of pitless fruits is not new. In the early 1900s, Luther
Burbank, a prolific horticulturalist, crossed a partially stoneless
wild plum with California French prune varieties. These crosses led to
commercial-quality fruit that almost completely lacked the stone, but
still contained the seed. The group used samples of Burbank's crosses
for their work.
The research team engineered Burbank's stoneless variety with an
early-flowering trait that will greatly speed up the breeding program.
The resulting fruit has remarkably little stone tissue, but further
improvements are needed to make it edible, according to Dardick. Early
flowering will substantially shorten the time it takes to test the
strategies that may lead to pitless plums.
According to Dardick, if successful, the research may be applicable to
other stone fruits, such as cherries, peaches, nectarines and apricots.
ARS is the principal intramural scientific research agency of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture.
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ARS News Service, Information Staff, Agricultural Research Service
5601 Sunnyside Ave., Room 1-2251, Beltsville MD 20705-5128
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[NAFEX] Fwd: Pitless Plums Studied,
Lon J. Rombough, 04/21/2009