International project to improve varieties of blueberries
Plant suppliers from the Netherlands and Ukraine have committed to a five-year financing program to cooperate with Invergowrie scientists to improve blueberry varieties for European farmers.
The company James Hutton Limited (JHL) established a new consortium that links science and business, with the support of the international experience in the improvement of berry varieties of the James Hutton Institute (JHI).
The consortium aims to develop varieties of berries with good post-harvest life and that adapt to their local environments.
According to Dr. McCallum, genetic improvement of the JHI, the most important thing is that the varieties have good taste and appearance for consumers and that they have a high demand from European blueberry producers. These are some of the characteristics that are expected to be found in the new varieties of blueberries.
"The demand for blueberries in Europe continues to increase and there is a real lack of varieties specifically adapted to European conditions. Using conventional and advanced molecular breeding techniques, it will be in the third or fourth year of the project when advanced material for testing by the members of the consortium will be available."Said McCallum.
The researcher added that the commercial collaboration is one of the largest in Europe, although in the United States and in Chile, the main blueberry producing countries, there are more jobs in progress.
For McCallum, the most important part of his collaboration is to have JHI's genetic resource base. They can separate traits such as size or sweetness, making the testing much faster. Also, working with plant propagators in the Netherlands and Ukraine, they can take advantage of their extensive knowledge. They know the characteristics that a good plant must have and what producers and customers want.
Currently, James Hutton Limited manages a British consortium for raspberry breeding, a commercial collaboration with the UK berry industry, including more than 22 producers and propagators, who have launched several varieties of raspberries including the most recent variety in the UK, Glen Dee.
Comments
In Chile, the harvest of the new Centra Blue blueberry variety began in February, which was developed in New Zealand by Plant & Food Research.
"Centra Blue is a late variety that covers the period of February, but with fruit from the central zone of Chile, which will make it unnecessary to resort to the southernmost areas of the country to harvest in this period"Said Alejandro Navarro, director of Viverosur.
"The great advantage of this new variety is that it seems not to break with rain or mists of that time", Commented Raúl Dastres, president of the exporter Valle Maule.
Centra Blue is a large variety (18 mm) and uniform throughout the bunch. In addition, the experts who have done the tests in the field, indicate that it is very vigorous and with direct production in outbreaks of a season, reason why it advances the production in a year.
Raúl Dastres indicates that, by incorporating this variety into the market, the supply of quality fruit is maintained throughout the period: "It is a firm and sweet fruit, with a good traveler's background and, if it is also productive, it is interesting to develop it". The new variety would be available from 2018.
"We see a lot of interest in her. We believe that this is the only way to ensure the success of the new varieties, is by validating them first in Chile and studying their post-harvest well. Our target markets are very distant and having a good post-harvest is essential in the introduction of new varieties in the country", Says Navarro.
Source: The Courier - Fruit Portal - Agrimundo
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