Summary: The pear industry lacks dwarfing rootstocks that can transform orchard structures to enable application of new technologies to improve efficiencies. This project aimed to build on previous breeding progress to develop a long-term, dedicated pear rootstock breeding program at the WSU-TFREC, Wenatchee. Evaluation of rootstock populations began in this project, which also included the first steps toward establishing necessary genotyping resources to inform breeding for dwarfing. In summary this project encompassed: (1) developing seedling populations to produce new rootstocks; (2) validating published dwarf and dwarfing markers for potential use in selection; (3) conducting marker-trait association for dwarfing traits; (4) expanding pear rootstock parent germplasm; as well as (5) evaluating B × A and B × C selections.
