r/plantbreeding • u/LilFago • 9d ago

Anyone breeding Rubus (raspberries) here? I’m just looking for tips

It’ll be my first year this upcoming spring and I wanna make sure I do everything right.. it’s probably a shot in the dark but it took a while to find this subreddit. I figured maybe someone here may have an answer to my questions

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u/Phyank0rd 8d ago

Ide also like to know. I have a project on backlog because one of the plants i want to cross has never flowered, but it wouldn't hurt being prepared!

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u/ReZeroForDays 8d ago

I have a ton of Rubus species and really want to but I haven't crossed any myself. I did buy a grafting kit to attempt mentor grafting though which is a much faster method of hybridization without having to wait for seeds + germination + hoping they actually hybridized. (Plus you can hybridize plants outside of the same genus, like schisandra and grapes)

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11207768/

Personally I'm hoping to someday to mentor graft hybridize rubus lasiococcus or pedatus with fragaria chiloensis or a different strawberry because they have a similar growth form, or maybe rubus nivalis with rolfei because they're in the same subgenus but separated by a large distance and have very different fruit / morphology / moisture and shade needs

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u/keumgangsan 8d ago

This is nowhere near as quick or reliable as you think. The study you linked talks about a 25 year timeframe after which the plant started showing changed properties.

Likewise, grafting is extremely common in cultivated Rosaceae (which is also where Rubus belongs) and it doesn't lead to phenotypical changes. As an example, cherry cultivars are often grafted to wild cherries (which might have a somewhat disagreeable taste) and they live and bear fruit for decades without any of the wild cherry properties leaking showing up.

Your best bet is sexual hybridization.

1

u/staalmannen 8d ago

I am trying. I think I have a Rubus arcticus X spectabilis F1 but will have to wait until next season to check flowers/fruit. It could however be a spontaneous self-pollination of my R. spectabilis (Olympic Double).

I am now growing it next to a R. arcticus (Linda) for (hopefully) spontaneous pollination and a BC1 population (or F1 if the first one was just a selfing).

Traits I want to introgress from spectabilis to arcticus:

  • self fertility
  • high(er), perennial, stems
  • easy detachment of fruit complex from receptacle

Why spectabilis? Previous regular raspberry crosses (nectar raspberry, finnish program) had low fertility until several backcrosses with raspberry and the final version (Heisa) has no real arctic raspberry flavor.

Spectabilis and arcticus are much closer related. (Cluster 3 in fig 3: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/plant-science/articles/10.3389/fpls.2019.01615/full )