The diversity of berries genetic resources as a kaleidoscopic value for traits exploitation for breeding

Berries (Rubus spp., Vaccinium spp., Ribes spp., Prunus spp., and Fragaria spp.) include a number of genera and species that display a high degree of variation of traits that represent a challenge for breeding new plant materials. Agronomic and fruit quality characters were analysed in the germplasm of raspberry, blueberry, currants, sweet cherry and strawberry available at FEM on three consecutive years, on 1785 individuals within a complete diallelic scheme representing 86 segregating breeding progenies of raspberry and on 63 individuals of different blueberry progenies. Genetic variation exists for many traits and it is variably exploitable. The increase of production in new and emerging areas and environments have shown the potential of traits – like reflowering in blueberry for example - to be not only manipulated but also representing an added value to the crop growth and to the design of new cultivars. Significant differences identified in the germplasm and within the progenies of the different quality parameters, agronomic traits are here presented.