The University of California Riverside (UCR) and Eurosemillas have signed a new agreement to develop and exploit a new generation of more profitable avocados, with an extended harvest schedule in at least two months. The new selected patterns will also allow the expansion of suitable cultivation areas and will facilitate the introduction of intensive production systems.

"We do not aspire to compete with the most successful variety -Hass- but quite the opposite, to generate more value around it in order to respond to world demand, which continues to grow annually in double-digit percentages," says Javier Cano, Director of Development of Eurosemillas.

For this, the Spanish company has invested $ 2,25 million in the UCR obtaining program, which has one of the best avocado germplasm collections in the world, and will dedicate another 3 million to the development of 4 varieties and 5 patterns. . Such effort will allow, for the first time in the 31 years of collaboration between both entities, the new varieties to be marketed in Europe, South America or South Africa at the same time as in the USA. USA

Working with avocado plants in the Manosalva laboratory at the University of California Riverside.

Indeed, during the last three decades, the international avocado market has multiplied by 2,5 and consumption per capita has quadrupled. Much of the success of this superfood is due to the consolidation of the Hass variety, which arose precisely in California. The joint commitment of the UCR and Eurosemillas for this type of avocado has already borne fruit in a second successful variety, Lamb Hass, which extends the current harvest period for Hass to May and June.

The new material that has been selected and that has already begun to be planted in California and Europe has much more ambitious objectives and will allow it to overcome almost all the agronomic and commercial limitations that this type of avocado still has today.

The new generation of Eurosemillas avocados adjusts to the taste for the dominant variety, the Hass, but improves and expands its offer.

All the varieties chosen by Eurosemillas are more productive than Hass itself. Two of them - one earlier and one later - will extend their harvesting period by another two months, which will allow the global supply of this type of avocado to pass, with higher volumes, from 5/6 months in each hemisphere to 7 / 8 months a year. A third selected variety, with somewhat smaller but equally fleshy fruits, seems to be called to be marketed as a product. good gourmet food, with a unit sale to the consumer.

The fourth avocado chosen is a pollinator ('type B flower'), which will reinforce that complementary character with Hass and that will allow increasing its profitability in percentages greater than 10%.