Developing new blueberry cultivars requires plant breeders to be aware of current and emerging needs throughout the supply chain, from producer to consumer. Because breeding perennial crop plants (such as blueberry) is time- and resource-intensive, understanding and targeting priority traits is critical to enhancing the efficiency of breeding programs. This study assesses blueberry industry breeding priorities for fruit and plant quality traits based on a survey conducted at commodity group meetings across nine U.S. states and in British Columbia (Canada) between Nov. 2016 and Mar. 2017. In general, industry responses signaled that the most important trait cluster was fruit quality including the firmness, flavor, and shelf life. Fruit quality traits affect price premiums received by producers; influence consumer’s preferences; and have the potential to increase the feasibility of mechanical harvesting, all critical to the economic viability of the industry. There were differences across regions in the relative importance assigned to traits for disease resistance, arthropod resistance, and tolerance to abiotic stresses. Our findings will be useful to researchers seeking solutions for challenges to the North American blueberry industry including development of new cultivars with improved traits using accelerated DNA-based selection strategies.

Over 60 rosaceous crop breeding programs exist in North America, but no information has been available on which traits are targeted for selection or how breeders make such decisions. We surveyed all active rosaceous fruit breeding programs in the United States and Canada to determine: 1) the relative importance of over 50 plant traits that breeders select for 2) the likelihood of selection for the most important traits; and 3) the factors influencing breeders’ decisions. A double-bounded Tobit model was used to investigate the effect of supply chain parties, technical and socioeconomic challenges, and crop characteristics on the likelihood of selection for trait clusters. We found that consumer-driven forces positively impact the likelihood of selection for traits more than producer forces and a breeder’s own experience. Technical factors are as important as socioeconomic factors but less important than market-related factors. Our findings provide the first ever evidence that a socioeconomic approach in specialty crop breeding programs can contribute to an improved understanding of the effects of different supply chain factors on breeding programs’ trait priority setting.

This study uses discrete choice experiments to determine the valuation that individual market intermediaries (e.g., packers, shippers, marketers, and processors) place on targeted fruit quality traits in apple, peach, cherry, and strawberry for both the fresh and processing market. In general, market intermediaries assigned the greatest value to fruit quality traits that would enhance their profitability through increased consumer appeal, increased marketing time windows, or more efficient processing. These results should inform decisions among fruit marketing intermediary enterprises and contribute knowledge to breeding programs to ensure breeding efforts are focused and relevant to the industry and consumers' needs and desires. 259260 GALLARDO ET AL. on the crop, they store their fruit from short-to long-term and strive to retain critical quality characteristics that permit shipment at opportune market times. Packers place fruit in containers that minimize damage during handling and transporting, while shippers transport and deliver the fruit to locations designated by customers under conditions that maintain appropriate quality standards. Processors provide fruit to their customers in varied and convenient forms: fresh-sliced, frozen, juice, sauce, dried, etc.Despite the intrinsic importance of packers, shippers, marketers, and processors (hereafter referred to as "market intermediaries") in contributing to an efficient and profitable fruit-crop supply chain, no published studies have investigated the preferences and values that market intermediaries place on fruit quality. This study aims to fill this gap in the literature by estimating market intermediaries' willingness-to-pay (WTP) for targeted genetic traits of apples, peaches, sweet and tart cherries, and strawberries. BACKGROUNDThis study is part of a larger project called RosBREED, dedicated to the genetic improvement of US rosaceous crops by targeted applications of genetics knowledge and tools to increase the efficiency of breeding programs and accelerate the development of improved cultivars (Weebadde et al., 2010). RosBREED focuses on fruit quality traits for apples, peaches, sweet and tart cherries, and strawberries, which are economically significant specialty crops that are produced in numerous US regions. The project includes a socio-economic component that seeks to systematically collect information on the values assigned by stakeholders along the supply chain and apply results to ensure breeding efforts are focused and relevant to the industry and consumers' needs and desires . This study is centered on market intermediaries' values for fruit quality attributes. One question of interest is how close are breeders' priorities aligned with market intermediaries' values? A recent survey, asked US breeders about the fruit quality attributes with the highest probability of being included when developing a new cultivar (Yue et al. (2012) and Gallardo et al. (2012). Apple breeders stated that they would likely include fruit crispness, fruit juicine...