Small Fruits Center Looking at Blueberry Breeder Position
With a plant pathologist position secured, a blueberry breeder is next on the wish list for the Northwest Center for Small Fruits Research, according to Philip Gutt, administrator of the center.
Gutt said the center’s small fruits breeder, Chad Finn, is stretched thin. And with blueberry production increasing at a rapid rate in the Northwest, Gutt said the Northwest blueberry industry has told the center that there is a growing need for a public blueberry breeding program.
“It makes sense to all of us here to have in place a public blueberry breeding program,” Gutt said.
Contingent on congressional action, the center also is hoping to re-open requests for research grant proposals in the 2015-16 fiscal year. Federal funding for the center’s competitive grant program was not available in 2012 and 2013, disrupting the center’s cycle of funding primarily three-year research projects. Funding was again available for the 2014-15 fiscal year, and over $800,000 was distributed in competitive small fruit research grants.
“Congress is starting to be a little more generous with ag funding, and we are strategizing ways to increase our funding,” Gutt said.
The center did not put out any requests for research proposals this year, Gutt said, because all of its money was already committed to ongoing projects.
“What we want to get back to is where we have about a third of the projects in the first year, a third in the second year and a third in the third year, so the cycle can continue and we can address new priorities more quickly,” Gutt said.
Working with commodity groups, the center will compile research priorities at its annual conference, scheduled December 1 at the Monarch Hotel in Clackamas, Oregon.
Gutt couldn’t give a time line on when the center will have a new plant pathologist on board. Efforts to reach Bob Martin, USDA ARS supervisory research plant pathologist, and Chad Finn, USDA ARS research geneticist, were unsuccessful.
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