Celery Breeding Program at the Department of Vegetable Crops, University of California, Davis

Abstract

California is the world's major celery producer. The main objectives of the breeding programmes are to develop disease and pest resistant lines that include resistance to Fusarium yellows ( Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. apii race 2), late blight ( Septoria apiicola) and leafminers ( Liriomyza trifolii). To assist in breeding, an Apium germplasm collection of ~300 accessions consisting of cultivars, wild relatives and cultivated landraces has been assembled. Along with conventional breeding approaches, molecular approaches are being developed including the production of chromosome markers and maps based on isoenzymes, non-specific proteins, morphological traits and DNA-based markers (RFLP and RAPD), and genetic transformation techniques.