The license plate on his pickup says “BERRIES.”  

 

Berries, rasp and straw, have made geneticist Patrick P. Moore, a very important man to thousands of berry growers in the Pacific Northwest. They tell him what they want. He responds with tailor-made new cultivars.  

 

That includes 18 new cultivars—eight red raspberry and 10 strawberry—now on the market.

 

And his work on berries recently made the Washington State University (WSU) researcher the 2015 recipient of the Wilder Medal, the top award of the American Pomological Society.

 

Not bad for a geneticist who was focused on trees, not fruits, during his graduate years at MSU. At that time, he was under the tutelage of the late James Hanover, the forestry professor who developed the Spartan Spruce and other new conifer varieties.  

 

Pat earned a PhD in forestry in MSU's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources in 1980.

 

But Pat’s first post-doctoral position didn’t pan out when the International Paper Company decided to discontinue genetics research, leaving him stranded in Natchez, Miss. 

 

Fortunately, the genetics of trees is much the same as the genetics of small plants. So it was no surprise that the late Kenneth Sink, MSU professor of horticulture, offered Pat a post-doc position at MSU to work on genetic improvements in tomato plants.  

 

Then, in 1987, when the Department of Horticulture at WSU was recruiting for someone to continue its decades-long genetics research to improve raspberries and strawberries, it welcomed Pat.

 

But he didn’t go to Washington State’s main campus at Pullman where the high dry countryside is better suited for wheat than for berries. Instead, Pat has been at the Puyallup Research and Extension Center, south of Seattle, in the heart of the state’s big and economically important berry industry around Puget Sound. 

 

When it comes to fruit, consumers focus on taste. But growers have many other considerations, particularly when berries are going to be harvested by machines and processed for preserves and other products. Many of Pat’s new cultivars have been aimed at durability and harvestability as well as improved taste.

 

His first strawberry release, Puget Reliance, is noted for long life span. More than 28 million have been sold over the 20 years it has been on the market, 

 

On occasion, Pat has invited chefs from some of Seattle’s finest restaurants and food industry representatives to come to his fields to taste berries he has developed and tell him what they liked.  he visitors expressed surprise at the range of flavor and  excitement in the possibilities.