Understanding strawberry cell walls as a guide to breeding future-proof fruit genotypes

该项目的目标是BBSRC的战略优先领域之一：生物科学促进可持续农业和粮食;次主题作物和土壤。它包括既有根本利益又具有工业适用性的新研究。成熟果实的软化涉及细胞壁结构的巨大变化。在许多物种中，软化是重要的，因为它使水果对消费者有吸引力。另一方面，过度软化是有害的，会造成超市货架上的浪费，使作物更容易受到病原体的侵害。控制软化过程，例如草莓，将在英国作物高峰期造成更少的浪费;进口作物（例如冬季从南欧和摩洛哥进口）可以走得更远;英国夏季出口的机会将增加。缓慢软化的水果会带来更少的疾病和更长的采摘间隔。

This project targets one of the BBSRC's strategic priority areas: Bioscience for Sustainable Agriculture and Food; sub-theme Crops and soil. It comprises novel research that is both of fundamental interest and has industrial applicability. The softening of ripening fruit involves dramatic changes in cell-wall structure. In many species, softening is important because it makes fruit attractive to consumers. On the other hand, excessive softening is detrimental, causing wastage on the supermarket shelf and making crops more vulnerable to pathogens. Controlling the softening process, e.g. in strawberries, would cause less waste when UK crops peak; imported crops (e.g. from Southern Europe and Morocco in winter) could go further; and opportunities would be raised for summer UK exports. Slow-softening fruits would bring less disease and longer picking intervals.