A candidate gene association study on brown rot resistance in peach (Prunus persica L.)
Brown rot caused by Monilinia fructicola fungus is one of the biggest challenges for peach industry in Canada and particularly in Ontario. During favourable weather conditions for fungal infection, this fungus can wipe out 100% of the crop. The cultivation of resistant varieties has always been considered the most reliable management procedure for this disease; however there is only limited number of cultivars with a satisfactory degree of field resistance. The process of generating resistant cultivars by traditional breeding methods can take many years especially with tree fruits. Bioinformatics and molecular breeding can fast-track these timelines and accelerate the generation of new cultivars to the market. The goal of this research is to explore the associations between SNPs, a type of DNA markers, and the responses of peach varieties to the fungal infection. Markers with significant associations to the resistance response will be used in breeding programs for the early selection of resistant seedlings. This research will result in large phenotypic and genotypic data sets that should serve as a core for many genomics-based studies in Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, the partner organization to my research.