Breeding Breakthroughs and Mentorship Insights with Gina Fernandez

A sunrise ride to an apple orchard changed everything for Dr. Gina Fernandez—and it might change how you think about berries. We sit down with the NC State distinguished professor and berry breeder to trace the path from cold-hardy apple rootstocks in Minnesota, to thornless blackberries in Arkansas, to a career defining strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries across the Southeast. Along the way, Gina reveals what makes a cultivar truly stand out: not just yields or firmness, but flavor that keeps people coming back.

Gina explains how she first joined NC State to tackle cultural management and methyl bromide alternatives, then stepped into breeding as the program shifted. We dig into the trials that helped launch a North Carolina blackberry industry, why thornlessness and resistance to double blossom were pivotal, and how later threats like orange rust and fusarium reshaped goals. On strawberries, she unpacks the split between shipping acreage and local pick-your-own farms, and more. We also talk about berry varieties Gina and her team have released over the years, specifically the blackberry 'Von' and the raspberry 'Nantahala', as well as the upcoming release of her new blackberry, NC740, to be called 'Ervin'.

Beyond genetics, Gina shares how science moved from solo wins to team science, and how she mentors through “Team Rubus” with weekly cadence, trust, and room for students to grow. Expect practical wisdom for early‑career researchers: travel to see different systems, build writing muscle, and collaborate across pathology, entomology, breeding, and economics to solve real grower problems. If you care about berry breeding, flavor, disease resistance, and how ideas become fruit on the table, this conversation delivers a full plate.

Additional information is available in these articles: 

HortScience "'Von" Thornless Blackberry": https://journals.ashs.org/view/journals/hortsci/48/5/article-p654.xml 

HortScience article, "'Nantahala' Red Raspberry" is available at https://journals.ashs.org/view/journals/hortsci/44/1/article-p25.xml

There are also many other relevant ASHS Journal articles available here.

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Podcast transcripts are available at https://plantspeoplescience.buzzsprout.com.

On LinkedIn find Sam Humphrey at linkedin.com/in/samson-humphrey. Curt Rom is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/curt-rom-611085134/. Lena Wilson is at https://www.linkedin.com/in/lena-wilson-2531a5141/.

Thank you for listening!

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Transcript

Welcome And Berry-Fueled Teaser

Curt Rom 0:14

Welcome to Plants People Science, a podcast from the American Society for Horticultural Science, where we like to talk about all kinds of things that are horticulture.

Sam Humphrey 0:25

All kinds of things. I'm Samson Humphrey. I'm a PhD student researcher at the University of Tennessee, and I'm one of your co-hosts.

Curt Rom 0:32

And I'm Curt Rom, your co-host. I'm a university professor at the University of Arkansas. We'd like to welcome our audience and thank you for joining us today. We hope that you'll find the conversation enjoyable and informative.

Sam Humphrey 0:46

Oh, I know they will. I'm excited for this episode, partially because I'm already getting eager about this year's baking. I love putting berries in my baked goods, and this just gets me more excited to use raspberries and blackberries and things that I may not have baked with before.

Curt Rom 1:07

Well, you know I'm excited because I'm a fruit guy, uh, and I've known Gina for a long time. She was actually a staff member at the University of Arkansas when I first came here uh when I was a student. And so we've known each other a long time. We've worked together professionally. Uh, I've watched her career develop, uh, and and that's been really fun. I've have done a few things on blackberries myself. I even have an honor student that's uh working on a blackberry project. So I'm kind of excited about today's episode. And it's the beginning of spring, fruit crops are starting to come out of dormancy. You know, it's uh that time of year we're thinking is it are is it gonna be an early bloom or uh on time bloom or a late bloom? Will there be a frost? But it's for a fruit person, it's a time of the year that's filled with anticipation because this year's crop is gonna be the best one ever.

Meet Dr. Gina Fernandez

Sam Humphrey 2:08

I'm sure that is true for our guest today. Our guest is Gina Fernandez. She's a berry breeder, director of graduate programs, and distinguished professor at North Carolina State University. She leads the strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry breeding programs, and you might use her strawberries Rocco and Liz, her raspberry Nantahala, and her blackberry Von. She's an incredible person, and I'm so excited we got to speak with her. Let's give her episode a listen. Hello, Dr. Fernandez. Welcome so much to the podcast. Thank you for coming today. Thanks for inviting me. So I have known you for a couple years now. You're the graduate student coordinator for North Carolina State.

Gina Fernandez 3:02

Oh, Director of Graduate Programs. Director of Florida horticulture department.

Hooked In An Apple Orchard

Sam Humphrey 3:07

Yeah, the title maybe doesn't matter to me so much because you were give such good advice and such good mentorship. And you were really you are really well suited to that role. And so I'm so happy to have you on this podcast today and to learn more about your history. So my first question for you today is how did you become a horticulturist?

Gina Fernandez 3:30

So that's actually a kind of a fun question. I've always been an outside person. I just like to be outside and you know be in nature and you know, was camping and grew up in rural Wisconsin. But in rural Wisconsin, there was just cows and corn, and I didn't know agriculture was a thing. So I got an undergraduate degree in biology, which is a great degree, and from a small college in Wisconsin, Ripon College, um, and study biology. And I was more of the outside, you know, like the ecology courses and the plant biology courses and stuff like that. But I didn't know about horticulture. And then um a couple years after I was uh had graduated, I was waitressing and traveling and just being a young adult having fun all over wherever. And uh I finally decided I was around 25 years old. I said, I need to do something with my life. You know, I can't just keep doing this. And I was living in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and um there's a big university there called University of Minnesota, and I found the graduate handbook and I looked up the equivalent of me, my current role now is Director of Graduate Programs, for a bunch of different programs that were in plant science, because I know I like plants that I like being outside. And so I just ran, and it was before there was an internet, but maybe it was the beginning of an internet, but it there wasn't, it wasn't around a lot. And so I just called them up and said, hey, I'm interested in plants. Can I come and talk to some people? I'm interested in graduate school, you know, what what do you do? And so I made appointments with various faculty members. And uh one of the faculty members I made an appointment with was Emily Hoover, and Curt knows who she is. Um, she was a fairly new faculty member at that time. She said, I can't meet with you, I'm too busy, but I'm going to the apple orchard. Can you come out with me and we can talk about what we're doing? And I'm like, oh, well, that's really weird. I don't know you, but I think I can do that. You know you sound legit. And and we met early one morning because that's what you do when you have field research. She picked me up and we went to an apple orchard that was a couple hours away. And the birds were singing, the apple trees were beautiful, you know, we were collecting these samples. She was enthusiastic. It's like, sign me up. I'm I'm here, you know, whatever it is. And she's, you know, so like, well, sometimes you go to the field, and sometimes you're in the lab, and sometimes you're working the greenhouse. So it was just a nice mixture of things, and it was also a person who I got along well with at that time, too.

Curt Rom 5:55

So before that, uh oh, Dr. Fernandez, I got a question for you. Um can we call you Gina? I mean, I've known you for a long, long time. So I just want to make sure I uh that you know we have been colleagues and friends, and we go back a long time. Prior to meeting Dr. Hoover, uh, had you ever thought about horticulture and fruit crops? Had you been around him, or was it the trip to the orchard that put the hook in you?

Gina Fernandez 6:24

It was the trip to the orchard, absolutely. You know, and I and I like the fact that it was a tangible product too. You know, you're you're doing research on something you can eat, you know, and you can't come home at the end of the day. And I still love that. You know, I bring home strawberries and blackberries, you know, many times a week sometimes in in the in the harvest season, too. So it was just it was that, yeah, absolutely.

Minnesota Masters And Cold Hardiness

Curt Rom 6:46

Emily is the one. That's really we're really kind of lucky in in horticulture because uh we get to eat our results. Or if we're

Speaker 6:56

working in ornamentals and floriculture, we get to take them home and put them on our table. They're pretty but I can under I can understand that. I I had a very similar experience that uh when I decided to become a pomologist in an apple orchard. I I think the blossoms and the smells and the the tastes, uh maybe they're secretly addictive.

Gina Fernandez 7:17

Maybe they are to put a trance on you.

Curt Rom 7:20

You know, who domesticated who? Did we domesticate the apple or they domesticated us? So you rolled in the program, tell us how that went, and you know, were you a little nervous or scared? You didn't have that horticulture background. Sure, yeah, yeah.

Gina Fernandez 7:35

I didn't know I didn't know plants at all. And I think the first semester I had to take an entomology course and a plant pathology course, and like this is not what I wanted. I didn't like that at all. You know, you know, I need to be with the plants, and so the next, you know, we we made sure the next semester I was signed up for, I forget what it was, if it was, you know, the tree food course or the small food course, but I was taking more plant and plant physiology, which I really enjoyed, and then started doing the research too the second semester. So that was that was a lot more encouraging. But uh yeah, at first I was like, this is not what I'm thinking it should be. But then and then also started getting into the research more than the classes too. And it's like, yeah, you know, get my hands on these things that would help with other people's projects too. I had some good other people that were on Emily's and Jim Luby's team that we would go out to their their plots and do things too. So it was just a fun time. You you know the collegiality you have with the other team members is just a good learning experience as well.

Curt Rom 8:31

What was your uh master's thesis area? Was it on uh what kind of crop was it and what kind of project? Was it a physiology, or were you now starting to dive into genetics and breeding?

Gina Fernandez 8:41

Not not yet. Um, so in Minnesota, um they study cold hardiness there, right? That's a thing. So that makes sense. So uh it was with the mark apple rootstock. We were looking to see how hardy it was. So we devised a bunch of experiment experiments where we would do defoliation studies and freezing studies and look at the browning and a couple other things. I can't remember all what it was. But so it was with apples um at that time and looking at cold hardiness in the mark apple rootstock, which is a new rootstock at that time.

Curt Rom 9:17

Well, wonderful. So you you completed that. Uh and then where do you go after Minnesota? What was your next step in your scientific journey?

Gina Fernandez 9:27

So I wasn't sure that I wanted to be the boss. I just liked being with the plants. I went, liked doing things with the plants, and uh I interviewed for a couple different jobs, and one of them was at the University of Arkansas with um Jim Moore, would be the the breeder at that time, and then John Clark was the station superintendent or something like that in Clarksville at the research station down there. And um I went down there and I interviewed for the job, and it you know they described what it was, and it was being outside, and I would get my own uh little uh four-wheeler, and I'd you know go around and do the pruning and do the crossing and you know, collect the samples and run the samples. And they also asked if I could set up a tissue culture lab, which at Minnesota I learned how to do tissue culture, too, so I helped them set up a tissue culture lab. And um it was just um the right mixture of you know being inside, being in the lab, you know, being in a new place, uh, you know, and being with an exciting program. We're you know, we're doing ex exciting things at that time. They were released the first thornless blackberry, too. So I was there for that, um, to uh to see that go through. So and then then I worked for there for two years. And then at about two years, it was kind of a lonely place for a single young woman to be in Ozone, Arkansas is where I lived, and worked in Clarksville. So there's you know, not much down there, Curt, right?

Curt Rom 10:53

There might be more Yeah, you know, not many people can say they lived in the Ozone. Uh Ozone, there there is the burger shack.

Gina Fernandez 11:01

Oh, there wasn't one there then when I was there.

Curt Rom 11:04

And you know, there's the um uh meeting hall in whatever it is, 10 houses. It's it's a small town. You lived in small town, rural mountain Arkansas. I could I could understand that. Uh well, you didn't have to spend much money on nightlife.

Choosing Between Driscoll’s And A PhD

Gina Fernandez 11:22

No, I actually, yeah, I saved a lot of money for sure. Um, but then you know, realized, you know, towards the end of the second year too, is like, hmm, I need to I need to do something more. Um, you know, and I'd like to be the boss, I think. You know, I'd rather, you know, listening to John Clark talk all the time was just getting a little bit um a little bit much every day, hearing the same stories over and over. Uh Sam, you might not have experienced that, but I experienced it for two years straight. So love the guy, but um ready to move on for something else to do. Um and then I uh and then I applied to several different graduate schools, and then I also applied to um for a job at Driscoll's and um flew out to Driscoll's and and interviewed with them and was offered a job with them to work as a strawberry breeder in California because I gotten the experience. I wasn't trained as a breeder, but I had gotten the experience of the field components of it at the University of Arkansas, better breeding programs there. Uh and then and then also interviewed at for a couple different graduate positions and went to New York and talked to them, too, and uh decided that probably Cornell was the place that I needed to be. Uh

Sam Humphrey 12:30

So you weren't always dead set on academia? No, not at all. I didn't even think of it as a, you know, I didn't think I wanted to be a professor. I just wanted to be the boss.

Curt Rom 12:40

What attracted you to Cornell? Was it the program? Was it a uh a faculty mentor there that you wanted to work with?

Gina Fernandez 12:48

So there again, it was, you know, I talked to Marvin Pritts, and he was a young faculty member, and he just you know, it's exciting and enthusiastic. And um he when I went up there to tour, uh, we hiked probably all the state parks that are in the area on the same day. And you know, it was something that uh, you know, this is like this this is what I want to do. You know, I want to be by all this beauty and these, you know, state parks and this natural beauty. There's lots of waterfalls, and it's just a pretty place to be. And then the reputation of Cornell is always good too. And a couple of people had told me, you know, Gina, your choice is your choice is clear. You know, you have you can get a PhD or you can you know go work for Driscoll's, which uh, you know, not a bad choice, but the better choice is to go get your PhD.

Sam Humphrey 13:35

So you got some good mentorship, you chose Cornell. What did you do there?

Cornell Pomology And Raspberry Physiology

Gina Fernandez 13:40

At Cornell, um, you know, signed up with Marvin Pritts and was the I did uh more of a physiology training, plant physiology or what just um actually my PhD is in pomology. So there's very few of us that can say that we have a PhD in pomology, but my focus was on apple or raspberry physiology and um uh with a minor in plant breeding, so I had a little bit of plant breeding in the background there. And we looked at the the physiology of raspberry plants. There's not many people had done much about that. One of the big takeaways that I worked with uh Todd Dawson as well, he's a physiological ecologist that was a rising star at that time, and was good to work with him. Um and one of the takeaways that we had from I had from that program was we did a study where we had potted raspberry plants and we put them in a growth chamber and cranked up the the temperature and found out that raspberries do not like the heat. Somewhere around 70 degrees, they just plateau out and then start to decline. So I still use that information when I give talks about raspberries and wherever I go. It's like especially in North Carolina, it's like how often is it 70 degrees or cooler, you know, in the summer for raspberries? So we just know that they shut down when it gets hot. So um you know that that still is a useful piece of information for that uh dates back to way back then when I was doing my PhD.

Speaker 15:15

What what raspberry variety were you using? I mean, about that time, you know, the heritage raspberry developed at Cornell was becoming very popular and it was kind of a transformative idea, as a Primocane breeding berry.

Gina Fernandez 15:28

It was Titan, actually. We used the yeah. So it was it was uh it was from the same breeding program, but uh it was Titan because we wanted a fluoricane fruiting raspberry.

Curt Rom 15:39

Okay. Wonderful. And how long what what how long did your PhD program take? How long did from the time that you made you arrived there and you started getting familiar with state parks as well as raspberries?

Gina Fernandez 15:55

So I started in 1990 there and then I graduated in '94, so about four years. I came in January and and graduated, I think in February or something like that.

Curt Rom 16:07

Oh, you got right after it. That's really good. If all PhD students can finish in four years, that'd be wonderful.

Gina Fernandez 16:14

No, I you know, I yeah, I get stuff done. I don't wait around for stuff to happen. Uh yeah, so that there till '94.

Sam Humphrey 16:21

And we know now that you're at North Carolina State, did you go straight there?

Landing At NC State And Early Strawberry Work

Gina Fernandez 16:27

No, there's a little side tour that was occurred between '94 and '95. Um, I started in '96 at NC State. So in I was took a postdoc at Cornell with Todd Dawson and his lab, did some more plant physiology work. Um, and then also happened to get married uh to a fellow graduate student at Cornell. Um Craig Yencho. Some people may have heard of him, he's a sweet potato breeder. Um, but he was offered a job down in Cali, Columbia at CIAT. So, you know, was whoever got the first job, we'd go to go there. And we he got the job offer down there. On the way to South America, I got a call from Tom Menaco uh from NC State. He was the department head at that time. He said, and I had interviewed already, and I was second place. And so they said, well, looks like you might be first place, you're edging up, you know, the other one's not working out. Can you stop by here? And I said, well, I remember that I told you about this person that I have attached to me, and they said, bring him, you know, we think we got a job for him as well. So um we stopped through on our way down to South America um in Raleigh and uh he interviewed sort of, uh, and and then we kept on going down to South America and they gave us time to figure out whether we want what we want to do. They offered us both jobs here. So um, yeah, and then the rest is history came back. It was at a time when when things in Columbia were a little bit dicey, and the the Cali Cartel was in full um activity mode, and you know, we would see people getting in dangerous positions a lot. Um, so it was you know, not at the safest place to be. Uh, so we decided to come back.

Curt Rom 18:23

So in North Carolina, the position that that uh uh Dr. Monaco was interested in hiring you for, I mean, you had a pretty diverse background. So you'd worked on tree fruit physiology, you had then worked inside of a small fruit breeding program at Arkansas and essentially you know managed much of that for several years with you know two really uh internationally renowned fruit breeders. Uh then you went to Cornell and worked on small fruits. What was the job at North Carolina? Was it uh small fruits just in general, or was it small fruit physiology, small fruit breeding? I mean, North Carolina State has always had a strong small fruit breeding program.

Gina Fernandez 19:06

Yeah, so I wasn't I wasn't hired as the breeder or you know, as a breeder at all. I was hired as a cultural management person, um, and it was an off-campus location. Uh and uh at that time, methylbromide was becoming um, you know, uh what's it called? Phased out, I guess. And so, you know, I identified that as a a problem that needed to be addressed, you know, and for the the local industry. And at the same time, uh actually three days before or after I was hired, Frank Louws, who is currently our department head and was at that time uh plant pathologist responsible for strawberries, also was hired. So we were in these uh um these new faculty meeting things together all the time, and and we started talking. It's like, oh, you're doing strawberries, oh you're doing strawberries, you know. So we started talking about what we could do together. And so we had a series of methylbromide alternative grants we looked at, and neither one of us had grown annual strawberries before, so we weren't familiar with the system. He came from Michigan and Canada, and I came from Wisconsin and um New York, so they were a perennial system, so we got to see how the annual strawberry system worked, and so we did some just baseline studies and looked at diseases um and looked at methylbromide alternatives as well. So we did uh you know probably four or five years of methylbromide alternative work. And so that's where I started. Um I merged into breeding uh as Jim Bellington started to retire and uh and also we wanted to change our location, so we wanted to come to campus. And so Monaco said, if you come to campus, you gotta do some breeding. And I said, Oh, well, I think I can do that. You know, I'm not trained as a modern breeder, but I I know how to make crosses and make selections and things like that. So yeah, so I started the breeding sort of by accident, um, but have enjoyed it very much.

Building North Carolina’s Blackberry Industry

Sam Humphrey 21:10

That's amazing. As a as a student, it's so easy to think, like, okay, I'm applying to this job, this is what I'm going to be doing forever. Like this is, and it's so cool to see how your roles and skills and plans just shifted.

Gina Fernandez 21:24

Be flexible.

Sam Humphrey 21:26

Yeah. Um, I don't know, it gives me a lot of hope.

Gina Fernandez 21:29

Yeah, you never know where you're gonna land.

Curt Rom 21:32

So you went to campus uh as a breeder, and again, Dr. Barrington had a uh an international reputation in small fruit breeding. Probably about the same time, Barclay Poland was becoming a leader in the southeastern United States and annual strawberry culture. What what crops did you decide to work on? Where'd you see the opportunity?

Breeding Goals: Disease Resistance And Shipping

Gina Fernandez 21:55

Uh well, so for Jim, I I was took over the cane berry breeding program. So it was the Blackberry and the Raspberry Breeding Program. And uh you know, just try to reinvigorate that, do some cultural management studies or as well, um, in addition to the breeding, and set up um a series of blackberry trials across the state because coming from Arkansas, I knew blackberries probably would grow here well, but they there wasn't really an industry here. So um I got some money from, and at the same time, the tobacco industry was phasing out of tobacco, so there's some money available for looking at alternatives. So just got chunks of money to put trials in across the state. This is a pretty big state. We can go from, you know, the high elevation mountains to the coastal plain, so we have lots of different um climates. So put in trials for blackberries and found out they did well, except for I was concerned that the thorny types that were still being grown a lot were getting uh double blossom. And that just wasn't, you know, I just was afraid of that. That would, you know, we wanted a new crop out there, or a new, yeah, a new crop to grow for the growers out there, and it just wasn't doing um, you know, it would eventually succumb to to double blossom. But at the same time, um John Clark and Jim Moore got very lucky by releasing the thornless blackberries, which also happened to be resistant to this double blossom. So there is a series of thornless blackberries that we incorporated into the rotation of these blackberry trials. And um, yeah, they did well all across the state. In fact, I remember coming back to Arkansas for a meeting and showing Jim Moore how well they're doing in their first year, and he said, wow, they're doing better there than they do here. Like, oh yeah. So uh, you know, from that from that we you know, we, you know, got the the growers interested in it. Uh we had a company from um Florida, Sunnywidge Farms, come up and talk to growers and say, hey, you know, we want to get a commercial industry going here too. So uh lots of other things happened. And you know, it was good that we had a nice extension or good extension system here in North Carolina where we could reach out to agents and uh growers and you know and get just get the information out there. We had you know information meetings and how to grow blackberries and developing um all sorts of resources for them online too. So

Curt Rom 24:33

you were able to admit some some important white foods and introduce a new crop to North Carolina, and uh obviously thornlessness and resistance double blossom were important. But you know, in your time as a fruit breeder, you know, two of these crops that you've worked with, blackberry and strawberry, have gone from being very localized, seasonal, you know, in-season crops to commodity crops. How's that affected your breeding objectives? And and tell us where kind of where where do you see the future now?

Gina Fernandez 25:05

Well, so what's been was good about the Blackberry Breeding Program is that um Penny Perkins and um John had done some studies, they've shipped the blackberries across over to Europe. And I would use that. There is a an article, again, you know, it was pretty seminal article in Hort Science, I think it was, that said you can ship these berries. So I knew that that was going to be a different type of system, not the local pick your own backyard type of industry. So that's what I always, when I was educating growers and things like that, this is something that's not just for your backyard. It can be for your background, but you know, it's bigger than that. Um, so you know, I knew that that would fit well into that, and that's exactly how it developed. There's a you know, a huge compared to pick your, you know, to the the backyard grower in you know, backyard industry, pick your own industry, it's it's much bigger. The blackberry industry is. Um, but uh what was it? Go back to that one, Curt. What is that? Yeah. Oh, so yeah.

Curt Rom 26:06

How how has uh the fact that now it can be shipped and it's becoming more of a commodity?Right. Uh you know, now you probably have new objectives like firmness or size or quality. What what are some of the I mean you saw thornlessness, you saw double blossom. What were some of the new objectives you had now that the markets were opening up for this crop?

Strawberries: Markets, Markers, And Flavor

Gina Fernandez 26:28

Yeah, so for blackberry, you know, that was orange rust was a big deal too. Fortunately, by very luck lucky circumstance that um the blackberries that we were working on releasing um 'Von' was resistant to to to orange rust, and the its competition, which was 'Navajo', the same sort of season, was very susceptible to it. So it was lucky that we had that. Um Von is also resistant to fusarium, so it's always, you know, you're sort of one step ahead or maybe one step behind what actually is the latest pathogen out there. So now we're looking at fusarium resistance, and fortunately we have that in our germplasm. So we're working with um Sarah Vellani to try to screen some of our germplasm for that fusarium resistance, and we found that we have some resistance here. Same thing, sort of in strawberry, too. When I first came here, it was more of a pick your own, um not commercial shipping industry. It's probably about half the acreage is shipping, and then half the acreage is um the smaller growers, but that half acreage that is shipping is only like a handful of growers, whereas there's a lot of little acreages out there for the smaller ones. So we kind of have to split how we look at you know what we release, but it's it's still you know, the disease resistance, and now the new one is Neo P in strawberry, so we're screening our material for that. We have markers for that, we screen all our material using those markers and work with Florida, University of Florida, they have developed those markers. We send them the DNA, they look, you know, look at them to you know, screen them and let us know what's resistant to them. So um, and and then also flavor is very important. We have a lot of flavor. One of my former graduates, I don't know if Sam, you overlapped with her or not, um uh was from trained in California. And when she came here, I was like, oh my goodness, you know, she's gonna see our strawberries, and they're not like big, like California, and you know, what is she gonna say about them? And she you know, sure enough, she's out there helping us harvest, and she's like, Oh, these taste good. And they taste different. And that's yes, they were smaller than those things that that come from California. So, you know, flavor is a very important component in the breeding programs as well, too. And I think that's just so good that that's an important part of it. And can I tell another story about flavor too?

Sam Humphrey 28:55

Yes, please.

Curt Rom 28:56

Yeah, we're we're interested in that. I think probably we we talk about that, uh Samson and I talk about this issue a lot. So tell us the story, and Samson probably has some follow-up questions.

Gina Fernandez 29:08

Okay, well, so back when I was looking at whether I should go to Cornell or take a job at Driscoll's, I was interviewing with Driscoll's and um went through in talking to several different of the breeders and the people that were important at Driscoll's and and in the meetings, and they always had this list of uh uh objectives for their breeding programs. And that list was maybe 10, 20 objectives long, you know, firmness, size, shippability, disease resistance, uh, you know uh uh firmness, it didn't leak, all those kinds of things. That list did not contain flavor on it. And I just remember coming back from there thinking, huh, that's very interesting. You know, and I wasn't gonna argue with them because they were in Driscoll's and they know what they needed to do, but I just thought that was just interesting, that flavor wasn't there. Now they, you know, they're all about the flavor, you know, the sweetest batch things is, you know, is you know part of their story, but uh just interesting how that's changed. Um I've always thought flavor is important.

Sam Humphrey 30:15

Sounds like you were wise even when you were a younger student.

Gina Fernandez 30:18

Well, it was I don't know if I was thinking in ahead. I was just like, oh, why isn't flavor part of it?

Curt Rom 30:22

Yeah.

Sam Humphrey 30:23

That's so cool. And man, imagining you as like that young, you know, wide-eyed biology student seeing fruits for the first time and now seeing you as the expert that you are who has made big changes in the field. I'm I'm curious how you feel like you've changed as a researcher and your ideas about science and research.

Evolving As A Scientist And Team Builder

Gina Fernandez 30:49

Yeah. So I think you know, at the beginning, you're more of like, okay, what do I need to do? With a methyl bromide, okay, we've got this problem, we need to do these things and we know solve that problem. Um, you know, very linear kind of. But now I'm more like, oh, how could we get some people working on the disease and the bio, you know, interactions and entomology? So I'm much more big picture than I was. Uh and not so worried about creating a name for myself. I don't really, I don't need publications, you know, I don't need to be the first author. Uh, you know, I like to be able to help other people and bring other people in and and share what I know. I, you know, I don't know that I know, you know, I'm not up to date on the latest omics science that you know it a a modern breeder in a know and uses. Um, but I do know how to look at a field and look at the plants and just, you know, I they're telling me, you know, this is this is I'm a good plant, and you know, there's just a gut feeling that you have when you look at the plants and walk through the fields. That's uh it's uh it's hard to put it's hard to to teach that, but other than you just over time you learn that kind of thing.

Curt Rom 32:02

Uh Gina, you know, it was my personal uh uh experience, and I'm wondering if you see the same thing. You know, when when I was a young pomology scientist and my first uh years on the career, uh the emphasis was really what could I do by myself? You know, what could what could I, you know, what how was I going to distinguish myself as an individual? Yeah. And actually working with others was almost de-emphasized.

Gina Fernandez 32:29

Right.

Curt Rom 32:30

I feel like it switched. Has that been your experience?

Gina Fernandez 32:32

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Teamwork is much more valued now. Right. You know, you didn't want a bunch of a paper with a bunch of different authors because you know, it wasn't like, you know, what did that person do if it wasn't just maybe you or two other people? So for sure. But now it's all about teamwork and you know, incorporating as much as you can into it. And I like that dynamics. Um, often the you know, the the the trials or the the the um well, I guess because that's what I do research on is is revolves around breeding, though, too. So there'll be a team, but it's breeding for resistance to a disease, and then you have the cultural practices and the economics, you know, so it's all sort of trying to improve that the situation there with whatever it is that's you're researching.

Sam Humphrey 33:19

Man, that's so interesting. And now you run your own team, you're the boss, like you said before. Um, and you've seen, I assume, because you are so experienced and you've been a part of so many teams, you've seen many different ways that teams can work together and different teams can collaborate or not collaborate. I'm curious what your what your idea of what what do you think goes into making teams work well together or within the team? What do you think it is?

Mentoring Philosophy And Team Rubus

Gina Fernandez 33:57

Yeah, I mean, there's a you know a lot of intangibles there too. It's you know, personality thing, um, making sure that everybody's comfortable with what they're what they need to do and and they know what they need to do. Um trust. You have to, you know, trust but verify and make sure that they're doing what you think they're doing, but don't you give them a chance to make mistakes too and and learn from their mistakes. And uh uh, I don't don't think I you know, I don't yell at people very often. We have sometimes discussions about okay, now the focus is here, and often with graduate students too, I have to like, okay, classes are good, but you also the research is really the important part. So we have to have that little discussion every once in a while about what's important in in your current activities.

Sam Humphrey 34:45

Yeah, it sounds like it's so much mentorship and so much thoughtfulness on the part of you as the lead that you have to do. I just I can't wrap my head around how how you're able to do it all well, how that how how you learned how that works out.

Gina Fernandez 35:02

Yeah, I don't know how I do it either. I mean you just do it kind of. Some people are better than others. I don't know that I'm all that good, but uh

Curt Rom 35:10

well, you're much of a good team member because when I look at your C V, you you've participated in some very productive teams with a lot of good teammates. And so it's it's interesting that uh not only are you leading a team, but obviously your colleagues rely on you because you get you get work done.

Gina Fernandez 35:32

Yeah, well, and it's just good, you know, we have good people to work with. I mean, Penny Perkins Veazey has been great, Frank Louws has been great, uh Hannah Burrack was great when she was here. You know, so we just had some really good people to work with. And it's just and you know, berries are fun. We're you know, we're we're in in general, we all get along together. You know, the the people that work in berry research, you know, very collegial, and we like to work with each other, and we're not concerned that you know one person is gonna uh you know scoop the other person on something, it's just that doesn't happen. We work together. So that's it's just a nice atmosphere to be in the berry world.

Curt Rom 36:11

When you're uh a mentor for your graduate students or uh any students that are working with you, uh pursuing a degree or their thesis or dissertation, what what are some of the things that you as a scientist, uh horticultural scientist, do you like them to walk away with? What's the big I mean they're gonna do a project and they're gonna hopefully get a publication, hopefully get a job. But are there other things that now as a mentor you like those that you're uh being a mentor to to walk away with?

ASHS Community, Recruiting, And Alumni Network

Gina Fernandez 36:43

Yeah, so experiences beyond the classroom and beyond the research too. You know, those professional development opportunities that they take of going to meetings, traveling to different locations, uh participating in uh skill building uh workshops here on campus. We have you know some preparing for the professorate and accelerate to industry industry, so things like that, because it's just so important to be able to communicate and to interact beyond you know your project, you get so focused on things too. So I just kind of I like to have the students do other things.

Sam Humphrey 37:23

That's really fantastic too, to hear that that you aren't just worried about publications or aren't just worried about.

Gina Fernandez 37:32

I don't know, a younger faculty member might be, but yeah.

Sam Humphrey 37:36

And so do you encourage your students like verbally? How do you how do you provide that mentorship?

Gina Fernandez 37:43

We meet once a week with each student, usually. Um, and then you know, we have uh you know they'll have if they have a greenhouse or field experiment, I'll you know, stop in on them every couple of weeks or um just to see how things are going, you know, very casual. Um yeah. And we meet as a team too, as a you know, the berry team we meet once a week. We're called team Team Rubus. Uh so we meet one of my old graduate students coined that term years ago. So I uh team Rubus and Fragaria. But uh, we're Team Rubus and we meet once a week and just go over okay, what's been done, what needs to be done, you know, does anybody need help with this? And then one of my my technicians, you know him, Sam, is uh a baker. So what did Ian bake this week with the berries? And he's always coming up with yummy things.

Sam Humphrey 38:32

Wow, yeah, it sounds like you have a system that you're very happy with. It sounds like you have like figured it out. But how has your mentorship style changed? What have what have you learned? What has changed over time?

Gina Fernandez 38:49

I think I was a lot more hands-on and more stick to the plan at the beginning, you know, so this is what you need to do. It's it's still somewhat of a cookbook formula, especially for a master's student. You know, this is we need to get this experiment done. Um but you know, I I feel like the students now they have exposure to new technologies and new information and things that I don't necessarily know and am familiar with. So like bring it on. You know, if you've heard something, if you know something else, you know, let's let's think about that and see how that could be incorporated. So a lot more flexible with things. Um, I'm really like to have students um be able to write. I feel like that's so important. And I'm really scared now with Chat GPT that they're gonna lose that skill. Um, I feel like writing is is it's really what got me into graduate school and through graduate school is that I can write. Um, but I I mean I use Chat GPT, but it's still, you know, I worry that the students were gonna lose that skill set. Maybe they don't need it, I don't know. But it's an important part of building those brain cells and that, you know, that like that that scientific inquiry.

Advice For Young Scientists

Curt Rom 40:00

Related to that, I know that you've always been very active in the American Society for Horticultural Science, and you you bring your students. How do you how has that participation in the ASHS uh helped you in your career? And how do you see it helping your students?

Gina Fernandez 40:18

Oh, so it's a great you know opportunity to interact with other students in in the sessions. Um I like to recruit new students go there too. Now, as a director of graduate programs, I'll have a uh desk at the new graduate student meeting or what you know, the one of the initial meetings too, just to meet the new people. So, you know, it's just I I um it's more on not what I present anymore, it's what the graduate students present. So I you know, I like to push them out there and have them do their thing. I yeah, I think if some of my graduate students had to give their talks, I probably would fail miserably because I don't know you know all the techniques that were used and the technology that was used as well as they do.

Curt Rom 41:00

Yeah, we are fortunate that you know, for the last five or six years, and we're gonna do it again at our next conference. It's become kind of a benchmark of the conference. We have a graduate school fair and career fair. So a great way to attract students and to meet. I do know you always have a great table there with a lot of bling.

Gina Fernandez 41:20

We do bling.

Curt Rom 41:23

So a great way to to recruit students, but also a great way for your students uh to look for whatever their next step is.

Gina Fernandez 41:30

Right, yeah. And it's just so nice to see that, you know, I have a long list of students and see that you know they come back and they send me pictures of when they that so my my former students will send me pictures. Yeah, we went out and and and we took a picture to send to Gina. I wasn't there, you know. I went to if I'm not there, they'll send me a picture of it and they know who they are, you know, so they they interact with one another, and and a lot of them never even overlap, but they still know each other. So that's just cool.

Favorite Blackberry And What’s Next

Sam Humphrey 41:56

Oh, that is so sweet, and to be able to see that, to be able to see these students move forward in the world and have their have new experiences, new lives.

Gina Fernandez 42:08

Yeah, and they're they're doing Amanda McWort now is one of my students, and she's now at University of Arkansas doing great things. And oftentimes people say, Gina, can you give this talk? I was like, nope, I don't know. Yeah.

Sam Humphrey 42:20

That's a sign of a great mentor, too, when when you play that role in people's lives.

Gina Fernandez 42:25

Um yeah.

Curt Rom 42:26

Yeah, you had double impact on uh fruit program in Arkansas, both working here uh in the years that you did work, and I I do know you made really some substantive contributions to the breeding program at that while you were here working, and now you've sent us Dr. McWert, who is uh has become uh pretty much a rock star for us.

Gina Fernandez 42:46

Yeah. She is.

Sam Humphrey 42:48

So I just have one last question. Okay. Um Curt may also have a last question.

Gina Fernandez 42:54

Okay.

Sam Humphrey 42:54

But uh mine is so you've had years, decades of wonderful novel experiences. You have made strides in the field, you have mentored students who have also made strides in the field. I'm curious what recommendations you would give to young scientists who are just starting out, figuring out what they want to do, and um might like to hear your wisdom.

Gina Fernandez 43:23

Yeah, take advantage of all the opportunities where you can go learn, you know, travel to a new location for a professional meeting or for a grower meeting, uh, you know, just to see how things are produced in different regions and you know what cultivars are grown and how they do things. Uh, I remember traveling to Europe when I was young, faculty member, like, oh my gosh, you know, there's there's so many things we could do, you know, modeling after what they do too. So, you know, just take advantage of those opportunities and even the professional development opportunities too, because it just it just it builds on your resume to show that you're a broader person than in your project in your classes.

Sam Humphrey 44:07

Yeah, it teaches you about yourself too.

Gina Fernandez 44:09

Exactly. Absolutely.

Curt Rom 44:12

Okay, I do have one more question, and it's the most hated question fruit scientists get.

Gina Fernandez 44:18

My favorite variety.

Curt Rom 44:19

What is your favorite variety of blackberry?

Gina Fernandez 44:24

Favorite variety? Of what? Any particular.

Curt Rom 44:28

Of blackberry,

Gina Fernandez 44:28

Von Blackberry for sure. That's my variety.

Curt Rom 44:32

That's a delicious variety, I have to say. You know, I know a lot of growers that grow it.

Gina Fernandez 44:37

I know.

Curt Rom 44:38

Thank you. Actually, growers in Arkansas are doing well with that variety here, and consumers like it as well. It's right up there with some of the Arkansas varieties.

Gina Fernandez 44:49

We got another one coming out too soon at uh NC740, where we'll be I think it's uh it's a contender for that. We call it a premium label because it always tastes good. So that is that one.

Sam Humphrey 45:03

That is so exciting. Well, thank you, Gina, so much for coming on to deliver this event to share your wisdom and your stories. Um, thank you.

Gina Fernandez 45:12

You're welcome.

Curt Rom 45:13

Thank you. Well, you have had a remarkable career. Thank you for all that you have done uh for students, for the American Society of Horticultural Science, and uh the fruit science that you've advanced and helped it's helped growers and and farm families and and rural economies. But thank you for those contributions.

Gina Fernandez 45:33

You're welcome, you both, and thank you for inviting me.

Sam Humphrey 45:49

Wow, that was a fantastic episode. I I really love asking these questions to someone that I see as a mentor. I have known Gina for a couple years now. I met her at ASHS during the graduate student fair. She's always been the one that has tabled for North Carolina State University, and so she's always like a bright face in the crowd. And then um she was a mentor for me. I did go to her with some of my issues during my master's, and she has always been a very wise person. So hearing her thoughts on her career and berry breeding is just like a treat to hear.

Curt Rom 46:28

Yeah, she's had a really good career in you know, at the beginning and during our talk, we talked about some of the variety cultivars that she's released. Uh a number of those have had really significant impact. Yeah, the the Nantahala uh raspberry, the Von Blackberry. Uh uh both of those are really important commercial varieties in in the South and Southeast of the United States. And you know, I was struck by the fact, you know, I think oftentimes a lot of people that uh aren't kind of front and center think that all that uh plant breeders want to do is have something that's bigger, brighter, and produces more. But uh the impact that she had that flavor was always part of her breeding objectives. If it didn't meet kind of a flavor standard and have better flavor than what was already out there, it wasn't gonna make it to market. So I really enjoyed that perspective.

Sam Humphrey 47:33

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, hearing her thoughts about flavor and those those breeding priorities is always so cool to me because every single crop is different. But yeah, flavor, I think, is is um, I know it's important to me and it's very important to consumers. And um, so yeah, I love hearing how she weighed those different things. That was a fantastic interview.

Curt Rom 47:55

It really was. I I I enjoyed the conversation. Of course, Samson, it's always great to catch up with you and uh to spend uh an hour in conversation. I thought Dr. Fernandez was really interesting uh sharing her experience, her journey. Uh it really was uh about plants. It was about the people behind the plants and the science behind the plants. So it was a really good episode today and a fun conversation. This is Curt Rom and Samson Humphrey. Thank you for joining us for Plants People Science. The ASHS podcast, Plants, People and Science, is made possible by member dues and volunteerism. Please go to ash.org to learn more. If you're not already a member of the ASHS, we invite you to join. ASHS is a not-for-profit and your donations are tax deductible.

Sam Humphrey 49:01

This episode was hosted by Samson Humphrey and Curt Rom. Special thanks to our audio engineer, Andrew Sheldorf, our research specialists, Lena Wilson and Andrew Sheldorf, our ASHS support team, Sara Powell and Sally Murphy, and our musician, John Clark. Thanks for listening.