Finding QTL's for chilling requirement and prickle free raspberries

Cuttings from NCQ mapping population used to determine chilling requirement,  cuttings were taken at regular intervals from the plants, then put in the greenhouse misted. Each cutting was then monitored to see when bud break occurred, chilling hours ranged from 200 to 1600 hours in this population.  

Ramon Molina-Bravo, PhD, a former student in our lab recently had a paper published on some of his research in the scientific journal Molecular Breeding, the article is:
"Quantitative trait locus analysis of tolerance to temperature fluctuations in winter, fruit characteristics, flower color, and prickle-free canes in raspberry"

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11032-013-9947-4

So, for those of you not inclined to read this type of article, what he found were locations on the raspberry linkage groups (think chromosomes) that were associated with both high and low chilling as well as prickle free (no thorns). This means that we are closer to being able to screen seedlings for these traits before they go out to the field. However, we still need a "few" more years to make this a trait that can be quick and cost effectively screened.