Updates on Strawberry DNA Testing and Marker-Assisted Breeding at the University of Florida

Developing new strawberry varieties with high level of disease resistance and superior fruit quality is critical for strawberry production. Despite the complexity of the octoploid strawberry genome, recent advances in genomics and DNA sequencing technologies have allowed us to identify causal sequence variants associated with specific phenotypes. These have enabled the development of new and improved DNA markers for integration in marker-assisted breeding (MAB) efforts. The use of MAB has significantly improved the efficiency of stacking loci responsible for disease resistance and fruit quality characteristics. The “Strawberry DNA Testing Handbook” is currently accessible in the Genome Database for Rosaceae and has been an essential resource for the national and international strawberry research community. Based on the information provided in the handbook, the UF strawberry breeding program implemented seedling selection from 2021 to 2023, retaining 25.3%, 19.2%, and 37.9% of seedlings for further evaluation in each respective year. In this report, we provide updates on DNA markers associated with disease resistance and fruit quality traits. Additionally, we demonstrate the practical implementation of these markers in high-throughput marker-assisted selection and their potential to enhance strawberry breeding.