Abstract
As growers adopt and diffuse improved food crop cultivars, their investment decisions for producing new cultivars control product accessibility and directly affect the entire supply chain. In this study, we estimated growers’ willingness to invest (willingness to pay (WTP)) in cultivars with improved quality traits for five rosaceous fruit crops: apple, peach, strawberry, sweet cherry, and tart cherry. WTP values differed by crop, but fruit flavor was consistently rated one of the most important traits, with higher WTP. This information will help breeding programs focus resources to develop superior cultivars for long-term economic sustainability of the rosaceous fruit industry.
Highlights
The plant family Rosaceae comprises 90 genera and over 3000 species, many with significant economic importance throughout the United States, including almond, apple, blackberry, cherry, peach, pear, plum, raspberry, rose, and strawberry (Iezzoni 2010)
Our results reinforce conclusions presented in previous investigations of fruit quality attribute valuations among general supply chain stakeholders, highlighting differences and similarities among the crops studied
Summary
The plant family Rosaceae comprises 90 genera and over 3000 species, many with significant economic importance throughout the United States, including almond, apple, blackberry, cherry, peach, pear, plum, raspberry, rose, and strawberry (Iezzoni 2010). Rosaceous crop breeding programs have successfully met these dynamic demands and developed cultivars that are more desirable, available, affordable, and healthier for consumers while at the same time benefitting other stakeholders in the supply chain (Iezzoni 2010, Gallardo et al 2012). Plant-breeding programs require significant investments of financial, human, and time resources Constraints in these resources require plant breeders to set priorities in order to focus on a limited set of traits, with the goal of developing a new, breakthrough cultivar. Rosaceous crop breeders develop an effective sense about the relative importance of traits from their interactions with consumers, growers, and other supply chain parties, the marginal values of these traits are unknown (Gallardo et al 2012). Knowledge of the relative values of fruit traits to different stakeholders can contribute to enhancing the efficiency of breeding programs by enabling breeders to focus on improving the traits of greatest value to the market (Yue et al 2012)
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