Peach genomics and breeding programs at Zhengzhou Fruit Research Institute, CAAS

Zhengzhou Fruit Research Institute (ZFRI), Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS) has acquired some advances in genetic resources, genomics and breeding programs over recent decades. We collect more than 1200 peach accessions from around the world, including wild relatives, landrace, and improvement cultivars. The book Peach Genetic Resources in China was published in 2012, which describes the diversity of peach and important agronomic traits for each accession. By a '1000 peach genomes' project, we re-sequenced whole genomes of 1000 accessions which marks the biggest genome sequencing project in fruit species. Through comparative population genomics analyses, the domestication history of the peach and human influences on perennial fruit crops were revealed. Genome-wide association study of 12 agronomic traits in peach identify candidate markers and genes that contribute to the large-scale characterization of genes controlling agronomic traits in peach. Based on the results of GWAS, we have developed a series of molecular markers which can be used to early identification on fruit related traits in juvenile phase. Using the widely collected germplasm, in the past 20 years, we have released more than 50 new cultivars, including 11 peaches, 17 nectarines, 12 flat peaches and 10 ornamental peaches, some of these cultivars are planted wildly in China.