Blueberries are big business, and years of R&D go into each of these little superfruits. The global blueberry market is expected to grow to $13.200 billion by 2035, as more and more people seek out healthy, antioxidant-rich foods. Research and development are critical to this growth because they help create better varieties, boost production, and address challenges like climate change and pests.

Costa Group is accelerating its genetic improvement program with the help of the platform FarmRoad de WayBeyond.

Costa Berries International Segment already uses FarmRoad on its farms in Morocco, India, and Laos, and now Costa Group is rolling out the FarmRoad platform on its Australian farms to improve the selection, testing, and growth of new varieties.

Costa Group's Varietal Improvement Program (VIP) has over 25 years of research behind it, but with increasing weather instability and global demand, it takes more than intuition and legacy methods to assess which blueberries can thrive in changing conditions. That's where FarmRoad comes in.

"While FarmRoad assists with day-to-day decisions at Costa Berries International's plantations, its role in the breeding program focuses on variety evaluation," he says. George Jessett, managing director of international horticulture at Costa Group.

Thanks to VIP, Costa Group can collect climatic data related to varietal performance, compare results across trials, and identify the most suitable candidates for commercialization. Furthermore, the FarmRoad integration provides Costa Group's R&D teams with real-time information on individual cultivation sites, turning complexity into clarity.

Costa's extensive network already covers 14 farms and more than 400 hectares of protected crops. Now, that same scalable infrastructure is being applied to optimize cropping decisions. berries"It's a milestone for our team and a sign for the industry as a whole," he said. Lotte Bayly, global accounts director at WayBeyond.

And it's not just about getting better berriesIt takes Costa Group between 8 and 10 years to develop and launch a new variety, from selecting parent plants to testing in various climates. By the time a new blueberry reaches the market, the conditions in which it grows may have changed drastically.

That's why, Waybeyond says, FarmRoad is important. Thanks to real-time data and environmental information, Costa Group not only improves yield and flavor, but also future resistance. FarmRoad enables smarter R&D, a stronger variety portfolio, and more informed decisions across all climates and crop life cycles.