The genome of a model plant related to peach, cherry and cultivated strawberry has been sequenced by a consortium of international researchers.

The work opens up a range of possibilities for scientists, and most immediately will see a team working on heat tolerance in commercial strawberry production.

Roche Diagnostics funded the initial project, which is significant in that the woodland strawberry fragaria vesca has many traits that make it an attractive model system for genomics studies and it is related to apple, peach, cherry, raspberry and other strawberry types all in the rosaceae group.

Scientists will now be able to develop molecular genetic markers for more rapid breeding of crops belonging to this group.

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