Printable Game Components

How can a card game teach us about plant breeding? Let’s learn and play!

Delicious blueberries do not just appear in the grocery store by magic or even luck. Blueberry growers rely on plant breeding to help develop the best berry for the market. It is important to realize that the “best” attributes of a berry are prioritized differently depending on whether you are growing it, shopping for it or cooking with it.

A grower may prioritize traits suitable for mechanical harvesting—such as upright growth and uniform ripening—since hand-picking is a labor-intensive and expensive part of production. For a consumer, these traits are low priorities compared to fruit attributes like large berry size, pleasant flavor and long shelf life.

Some desirable traits are priorities for everyone. Pest resistance results in less pesticide application, while drought resistance and frost tolerance allow plants to withstand severe weather, reducing the risk for crop loss and increasing yields.

Ultimately, there is no single “perfect” berry. A berry that is ideal for the fresh market may not be best suited as an ingredient in food products like muffins or smoothies. Similarly, an ideal berry bush for the Eastern North Carolina climate, where most North Carolina blueberries are grown, may not thrive in Western North Carolina, let alone a different state or country. Typically, a plant breeder works with a grower or industry partner who has identified a specific group of target traits. Breeders often have constraints, such as money, time or available genetics. Let’s see how many features of plant breeding are demonstrated in gameplay.

Game Mechanics: Building Your Target Berry In this game, target traits are chosen based on the puzzle pieces assembled to start each round. The traits are grouped by type into four quadrants:

• Upper Left: Consumer preferences (e.g., flavor, size).
• Upper Right: Mechanical harvesting traits (e.g., upright growth).
• Lower Left: Nature-induced production issues (e.g., pest/frost resistance).
• Lower Right: Postharvest considerations (e.g., shelf life).

The traits included in this game are based on a real USDA research project surveying industry stakeholders.

Desirable vs. Undesirable Traits Breeding must deal with both desirable and undesirable traits. While only desirable traits are on the blueberry puzzle pieces, the deck’s trait cards include both. The inclusion of undesirable traits slows down gameplay, as the only “play” for an undesirable card is to discard it. This illustrates the real-world difficulty of isolating good genetics. (Tip: Take the time to read what makes a trait desirable or undesirable—this information is printed on each card!)

The Element of Time For an added layer of play, keep track of how many turns players take, with each turn representing a year of breeding effort. Real-world blueberry breeding can take 5 to 20 years! Traditional cross-breeding takes the longest (10-20 years), while using genomic tools like marker-assisted selection can reduce the timeline by 5 to 10 years. In the game, drawing and discarding trait cards represents the time-consuming reality of acquiring specific genetics.

Action Cards & Collaborations Action cards represent real events that can slow down or expedite a breeder’s progress:

• Setbacks: If your plants freeze or you face an insect problem, you lose time (lose a turn).
• Advances: If you secure research funding or consult an expert, your efforts advance quickly (gain an extra turn).
• Collaborations (“Swap a Card”): When launching a collaborative effort, both breeders hope to benefit. To execute a swap, players must first make their best effort to trade cards that help both of their breeding goals. However, if either player lacks a helpful card, they may simply swap a card of their choosing.

Ending a Round When a player collects all their target traits (with or without Wild cards), they call “Blueberry!” to signal the end of the round. The caller lays down their cards, and play continues for one final turn around the table. This allows everyone to lay down the matching traits they did collect. Just like in real life, even if they didn’t finish the cultivar, they still made progress improving a breeding line!

Every player tallies points for the target traits they collected. Any player who collected all four gets bonus points for successfully releasing their new blueberry cultivar.

Starting Anew & Winning the Game Once a new cultivar is released, a real breeder moves on to a new collection of target traits. In the game, players who collected all four target traits must disassemble their puzzle, return the pieces to the appropriate piles, and select new traits to assemble a new target berry for the next round.

The Blueberry Breeder Extraordinaire is the player who scores the most points after three rounds of play!

Instructions

Age 12+ | 3-4 Players

Game Components

• Blueberry Puzzle Pieces as follows (3 each):
  • Sweet
  • Pleasant Flavor
  • Large Berry
  • Firm Berry
  • Uniform Ripening
  • Upright Growth
  • Pest Resistant
  • Frost Tolerant
  • Drought Tolerant
  • High Yield
  • Long Shelf Life
  • Light Blue Color
• 104 Playing Cards as follows:
  • 70 Desirable Trait Cards
  • 14 Undesirable Trait Cards
  • 14 Action Cards
  • 6 Wild Cards
• Scorecard

Playing the Game

Objective 
Each player is trying to breed a better blueberry by collecting all the traits on their selected blueberry puzzle. 

Setup
Each player selects one of each blueberry puzzle piece shapes for a total for 4 puzzle pieces and assembles their puzzle with the traits face up.

All cards (desirable trait cards, undesirable trait cards, wild cards and action cards) are shuffled together. The dealer gives one card at a time to each player starting with the player to their left, moving in a clockwise direction. Players are each dealt four cards. 

The remaining cards are placed facedown in the center of the table forming the draw pile. The top card is turned face up next to the draw pile to form the discard pile. 

Game Play
Play begins with the person to the left of the dealer. There are four potential stages to each turn.

1. Draw (mandatory)
   • Each player begins their turn by either drawing a single card from the top of the draw pile or taking the top card from the discard pile. If an action card has been played and discarded, the next player cannot pick up the action card from the discard pile. 
2. Action Card
   • Action cards can be used during a turn, after the draw and before the discard. Action cards can be given to another player to slow them down or used to help the person playing the action card. Action cards can only be used on the player to the left. If used during a turn, the action card must be discarded.
     • Lose a Turn: When a “Lose a Turn” action card is played, the player to the left of the person discarding is skipped for the round. This action card serves as a discard and cannot be picked up by the next eligible player.
     • Take an Extra Turn: When a “Take an Extra Turn” action card is played, the player using the card immediately takes a second turn by drawing from the draw pile. Play resumes to the left following the discard from the Extra turn. 
     • Swap a Card: When the “Swap a Card” action card is played, the player using the card and the player to their left swap 1 card. The card should be a desirable trait card that matches their “collaborator’s” target blueberry traits, if possible. The players swapping should not relinquish a trait card they need to build their own berry. 
3. Laying down (optional) 
   • Once a player has collected all four traits on their blueberry, they may lay down those cards. 
   • Wild cards: Players may use wild cards to represent any trait. 
4. Discarding (mandatory) 
   • At the end of each turn a player must place one card from their hand face up on the discard pile. This signals the end of their turn. 

Each player takes a turn, moving around the circle in a clockwise direction.

Going Out
When a player lays down all the traits for their blueberry, this player has become the first to release their new blueberry cultivar! Play continues allowing each player one final turn. If a player has the trait a wild card represents in a hand that has already been laid down, the player can exchange the trait card for the wild card and use the wild card in their own hand. On this final turn, following the discard, each player lays down the trait cards matching their target blueberry, including any Wild Cards. This concludes each round and the score is tallied and recorded on the score card for the cards laid down. 

Starting a New Round
Players who laid down all four traits will disassemble their berry and select four new puzzle pieces before the next round begins. As a successful breeder, they will be working on a new challenge, with new target traits. Those who did not lay down all four traits will keep the same blueberry puzzle. 

Cards are reshuffled and 2 additional rounds are played. After 3 rounds, points are tallied and the player with the most points wins the game.

Scoring

• At the end of each round, each player adds up the points they have laid down. Wild cards are worth 3 points. 
• Every player who lays down four matching trait cards (including wild cards),  gets an additional 3 points for successfully breeding and releasing a new cultivar. 
• The player with the highest point value after 3 rounds of play wins. 

Many things can affect a plant on its way to becoming a delicious fruit sold in a store. This game was developed to help the player understand how complex the breeding process can be.

Game developed by Amy Bowman, Extension Associate at NC State University Plants for Human Health Institute