New program of genetic improvement of blueberries gives its first fruits for Chile and Mexico
Viverosur started its blueberry breeding program in the 2007 year, with the aim of finding new varieties that can adapt to the new and increasingly demanding markets worldwide.
"We have very promising crosses"Said Alejandro Navarro, director of Viverosur.
"Our first filter is the size. We need fruit of at least 20 mm, but we are also working to produce varieties to evaluate in Mexico and Peru. For this we have included in our crosses the variety Biloxi, which is a variety of very old cranberry, with medium-sized fruits, but it adapts well to these climates of Mexico and Peru"He added.
Navarro detailed that they crossed Biloxi with the best commercial varieties to obtain better parameters of quality and size of fruit.
"We hope that Biloxi can give us the adaptation to these temperate climates, where most varieties do not work well. We have close to 30.000 crosses that we are evaluating in the field, where we have selected this season 42 varieties with potential for Chile and 18 to evaluate in Mexico"He commented.
Recently, Viverosur signed an agreement with EXIFRUT de México to evaluate the first generation called BILOMEX, "where we have a series of new large selections and we need to determine their adaptation to always green growing conditions in Mexico, with the advantage that the post harvest is not as relevant in a production area that the market has to 48 hours of the harvest, so we believe that we will advance a little faster in this type of market"Navarro said.
"We need to do something similar in Peru in the future", He said.
"We believe that it is one of the few, but the only genetic program that is working with Biloxi and the results have been surprising so far", Highlighted the director of Viverosur.
Varieties for Chile
"As we all know, a good post-harvest is very important for blueberries under the Chilean conditions and their distances from the markets (USA, Asia), and for this we have reached an evaluation agreement with the exporter Valle Maule and So select the best early, middle and late varieties, with excellent post-harvest"Navarro said.
The director of Viverosur reported that they have had very good results with crosses of the varieties Duke x Chandler, Duke x Toro, Duke x Legacy, Legacy x Toro, Elliot x Misty and Duke x Elliot.
"We have made a pre-selection by caliber, considering a break to the 20 mm".
"The market is more demanding every day and, if we are successful in post-harvest, taste and with this size, I think we will have a great future with this program made entirely in Chile"He concluded.
Source: Fruit Portal
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