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Private Strawberry Breeders in California

2006; American Society for Horticultural Science; Volume: 41; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.21273/hortsci.41.1.17

2327-9834

Thomas M. Sjulin,

Fungal Plant Pathogen Control

Albert Etter (1872–1950) was born in El Dorado County, Calif., to a German immigrant father who later moved the family to Humboldt County, Calif., along the north coast. Albert’s formal education ended at the age of 15, and he began work on the family farm. When Etter turned 21, he established a homestead in a remote area of Humboldt County. He named his new homestead Ettersburg for the castle in southern Germany where his family originated. It was from this isolated homestead that Etter did his life’s work of breeding, propagating and selling new cultivars of strawberries, apples and pears (Darrow, 1963; Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974). Etter contributed to strawberry improvement in several ways, including 1) early use of both South American and North American clones of the wild beach strawberry (F. chiloensis L.) to improve the adaptability of strawberry cultivars to local conditions; 2) the development of commercially successful cultivars; 3) an understanding of the factors infl uencing fl owering and runnering in the strawberry; and 4) a major contribution to the genetics of current cultivars in use throughout North America. Etter, despite his isolated location, infl uenced the thinking of strawberry researchers and producers of his day. He did this through frequent correspondence in the Pacifi c Rural Press, an important agricultural newspaper that at the time was edited by E.J. Wickson, Dean of the University of California (UC) College of Agriculture and a supporter of Etter’s work (Fishman, 1987). Etter also infl uenced strawberry research through observations he recorded in his own nursery catalog (Etter, 1920), and through visits made to his homestead by strawberry researchers, including Roy Clausen, UC geneticist (Clausen, 1915) and George Darrow, strawberry breeder and horticulturist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Beltsville, Md. (Darrow, 1963). Etter’s use of F. chiloensis in his breeding work is well documented (Clausen, 1915; Darrow, 1963, 1966; Etter, 1920; Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974). He recognized that F. chiloensis would improve the vigor, drought resistance and fruit size of the cultivated strawberry. Etter used a cultivated clone of F. chiloensis from Peru in the development of his fi rst successful cultivar, ‘Rose Ettersburg’. He also crossed a clone of F. chiloensis from Cape Mendocino in Humboldt County with ‘Rose Ettersburg’, and a seedling from the resulting hybrid was introduced as ‘Ettersburg 80’. ‘Ettersburg 121’ was also developed from crosses with F. chiloensis, and later cultivars such as ‘Fendalcino’, ‘Trebla’, ‘Red Cross’ and ‘Ettersburg 450’ were derived in turn from these cultivars and other selections that have F. chiloensis clones in their parentage (Etter, 1920). Several of Etter’s cultivars were widely grown. The ‘Ettersburg 80’ was recognized for its dessert quality, and was grown for canning and jam manufacture in North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. In England, it was renamed ‘Huxley’ and grown commercially until the 1950s. Others, such as the ‘Fendalcino’ were popular home garden cultivars in California (Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974). In Oregon, ‘Ettersburg 121’ was second in importance only to ‘Marshall’, accounting for 29% of the harvested area in a survey completed in 1925 and 1926 (Schuster and Burrier, 1929). Small percentages of ‘Ettersburg 80’ and ‘Trebla’ were also reported in this survey. Oregon at that time was a leading producer of strawberries in the U.S., with more area harvested than California. ‘Ettersburg 121’ was rated the best cultivar for canning in Oregon (Schuster, 1923), and was grown in that state until the late 1940s, when it was replaced by cultivars better suited to freezing (Waldo and Hartman, 1947). Etter’s correspondence in the Pacifi c Rural Press also infl uenced strawberry industry leaders. Joseph E. Reiter, along with R.F. Driscoll, pioneered the development of ‘Banner’ as a major commercial cultivar along the central coast of California in the early 1900s. Reiter was puzzled by the diminished production of stolons in this cultivar over several seasons following transplanting to fruiting fi elds near Watsonville, Calif., from nurseries in the Trinity Mountains of northern California. Reiter commented on this phenomenon in a letter to the Pacifi c Rural Press. Etter observed, in reply to Reiter’s query, that the winters in Watsonville were too mild to stimulate vegetative reproduction. His observation supported the movement of the California strawberry nursery to northern California sites with adequate winter chilling to promote stolon production (Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974). Etter’s greatest legacy to the modern strawberry industry is the genetic contribution of his cultivars to today’s cultivars. His cultivars are found in the background of all geographic groups of North American cultivars described by Sjulin and Dale (1987) except the Minnesota group. ‘Fendalcino’ (developed from ‘Ettersburg 121’) was a source of virus tolerance in the UC breeding program (Wilhelm and Sagen, 1974) and contributes strongly to the genetics of both public and private California cultivars. ‘Ettersburg 450’ is believed to be one parent of ‘Fairfax’, and thus contributes through the widespread use of ‘Fairfax’ and derivatives in many North American public breeding programs in the fi rst half of the 20th Century (Darrow, 1966). Both ‘Ettersburg 121’ and ‘Ettersburg 450’ contribute heavily to Pacifi c Northwest cultivars. At least three additional founding clones from Etter’s work contribute to modern North American cultivars (Sjulin and Dale, 1987). Etter discontinued his strawberry breeding after 1926, and concentrated on apple and pear breeding. Darrow suspects that diseases introduced on germplasm sent to Etter may have made it diffi cult for him to continue his work (Darrow, 1966). Whatever the reason, much of Etter’s own collection of materialwas lost soon after this time. Some of Etter’s cultivars have been re-collected from foreign sources (Fishman, 1987), and at least fi ve of Etter’s cultivars (‘Ettersburg 121’, ‘Califour’, ‘Latecross’, ‘Red Cross’ and ‘Trebla’) are listed in the Fragaria catalog of the National Clonal Germplasm Repository in Corvallis, Ore. (National Clonal Germplasm Repository, 2003).