New varietal development
Passionfruit have been cultivated and sold commercially in Australia for many years. Breeding programs have produced new varieties from selective crossing to achieve viable plants which deliver yield, disease resistance and eating quality.
There is currently a new breeding project underway – PF15000 National Passionfruit Breeding Program – funded by Hort Innovation, using the passionfruit research and development levy and contributions from the Australian Government. Hort Innovation is the grower owned, not-for-profit research and development corporation for Australian horticulture.
The project hopes to deliver the following outputs:
- New passionfruit varieties
- An improved system for selecting new passionfruit cultivars for commercial production
- Crucial pre-breeding information on traits of interest such as inheritance patterns and associations with DNA markers, along with a reference linkage map
- Two additional sources of new material for future trialling – (a) New inbred lines created from current material and (b) F1 hybrids from current in-bred lines
- Establishment of a seed bank to conserve and enhance current passionfruit genetic material
