Dr Lisa Jones: Breeding better berries
15 Nov 2023
Dr Lisa Jones loves berries so much that she now spends every day trying to create the perfect raspberry.
Originally a plant pathologist, Lisa connected with the Washington State (USA) berry industry while researching raspberry diseases. Lisa has always had an interest in science and nature, and was often found gardening and foraging as a teenager, before getting her first job on a commercial grain farm. This led to a career in plant science that started at Cornell University then to the Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey in Florida to study diseases in citrus and palm.
After completing a PhD in plant pathology at her alma mater Cornell, Lisa moved to Oregon to study plant disease in small fruits. Here she began her fascination with berries, and she grabbed the opportunity to join Pacific Berries – the US-based joint venture between Plant & Food Research and Northwest Plant Co – as its dedicated berry breeder.
“Berries are one of the healthiest foods you can eat, and many top nutritionists recommend eating berries daily for optimal health,” says Lisa. “Everyone loves berries, and I always get a positive response when I tell people that I work in the berry sector. It’s great to be able to apply my skills to a fruit that makes people genuinely happy, and to help growers with more knowledge and better cultivars that meet their needs.”
Lisa’s expertise in plant disease is useful in her role, as tolerance to diseases like Raspberry Bushy Dwarf Virus and root rots are key traits required by raspberry growers. But there are also other traits to consider, such as fruit size, flavour and yield. Berry breeding for machine harvest – which requires a firm berry that releases easily from the plant – is a relatively new discipline with lots of room for improvement, a challenge Lisa relishes.
Every year, Lisa screens more than 10,000 offspring from manual crosses to determine which one or two might make the grade as a commercial cultivar. Further analysis determines if these have something more to offer growers than existing varieties or meet the grade for all the exceptional qualities required in a Wake® variety.
