Conventional breeding of woody fruit crops through hybridization is more time-consuming, labor-intensive, and costly than breeding annual plants, primarily due to their prolonged juvenile phase before flowering. Over the past two decades, significant efforts have been made to accelerate woody plant breeding, also known as as FasTrack breeding, by shortening juvenility using cutting-edge technologies. One key strategy involves genetic engineering of flowering pathway genes, particularly members of the phosphatidylethanolamine-binding protein (PEBP) family, such as FLOWERING LOCUS T (FT) and TERMINAL FLOWER 1 (TFL1). Constitutive expression of FT or knockout/knockdown of TFL1 has proven effective in inducing early flowering. These approaches have successfully enabled FasTrack breeding in blueberry (Vaccinium cormbosum) and plum (Prunus domestica). In this presentation, I will share our success in blueberry FasTrack breeding and discuss recent progress in applying this strategy to grapevine (Vitis vinifera). More recently, we have developed FasTrack breeding blueberry (Vaccinium cormbosum) and made significant progress in applying this strategy to grapevine (Vitis vinifera) though FT overexpression and TFL1 gene editing.
