BLACKBERRIES AND RASPBERRIES IN THE SOUTHERN UNITED-STATES - YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW

Blackberries have: long been a popular fruit in southern U.S.. and the y are widely grown there, with excellent potential for expanded produc tion. Raspberries are also well-liked, but not widely grown, due to la ck of adapted cultivars. Great progress has been made, particularly in the past four decades, in improving blackberry cultivars for the Sout h, but little effort has been given to raspberry improvement. Germplas m exists within Rubus to provide great advances in conventional cultiv ar improvement in both subgenera and for creating new types of fruits through interspecific hybridization. Germplasm and breeding strategies will be discussed that would result in new cultivars to serve as the foundation on which to build much expanded blackberry and raspberry in dustries in southern United States.