Floyd Zaiger a world famous fruit breeder has just passed. Luther Burbank created such creations as the Russet Burbank Potato, the Shasta daisy and the ‘Santa Rosa” plum. This was all done through traditional breeding practices. Floyd Zaiger carried the breeding process to a more intense level for fruit trees, crossing plums and apricots to get ‘Pluots' and ‘Apriums' and a range of other crosses between species – interspecifics. He worked to create low-chill cherries, such as ‘Minnie Roya', ‘Royal Lee' an ‘Riyal Crimson' that are more adapted to Southern California growing conditions than traditional cherries. He and his company Zaiger Genetics were able to create new varieties by the sheer number of crosses that are done every year, thousands. Part of the success has been the use of moveable containers that allow them to create environments that are more conducive to crosses that would not normally occur because of different flowering times. The Zaiger family continues with the family business and we can expect to see many more new Zaiger fruits, nuts and rootstocks in the future.
New selections currently under development include:
- varieties with low winter chilling requirements,
- dwarf and semi-dwarf varieties,
- dwarfing rootstocks and extremely vigorous semi-dwarfing rootstocks,
- nematode and disease-resistant rootstocks,
- extra-early and extra-late-ripening varieties,
- low acid/high flavor white-fleshed peaches and nectarines,
- low acid/high flavor experimental varieties,
- Asian and European pear hybrids,
- apples, red pears, canning clingstone peaches,
You can read Floyd Zaiger's obituary below:
https://www.modbee.com/news/business/agriculture/article243589442.html
And we do have UC breeders of all manner of fruits – strawberries, walnuts, pistachios, citrus amongst many other crops. A couple of avocado breeders are Mary Lu Arpaia and Patty Manoslava
https://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=42726
Floyd Zaiger, pioneer of modern fruit crosses, gives out samples. The Sacramento Bee
