Genetics, Genomics and Breeding of Stone Fruits

The stone fruits, including peaches, apricots, almonds, plums and cherries, have been bred and grown for thousands of years and today are significant agricultural crops in many local economies worldwide providing important components to healthy diets. This volume, comprising 14 chapters authored by 37 scientists from 7 countries, presents a comprehensive commentary on classical genetics and breeding; molecular mapping and breeding of agronomic traits; cloning of genes of interest; recent advances on 'omics' sciences including structural and functional genomics, proteomics and metabolomics with an enumeration on the whole genome sequencing of the model fruit plant peach; and application of bioinformatic strategies and tools for stone fruit research.

Basic Information on the Stone Fruit Crops. Traditional Genetics and Breeding. Diversity Analysis. Molecular Linkage Maps: Strategies, Resources and Achievements. Mapping and Tagging of Simply Inherited Traits. Molecular Mapping of Complex Traits. Molecular Breeding. Map-based Cloning in Stone Fruits. Genome Sequencing Initiative. Comparative Genetics and Genomics Initiatives. Functional Genomics: Transcriptomics. Proteomics and Metabolomics. Bioinformatics as a Tool for Stone Fruit Research. Retrospect and Prospects.