Leading Indian fresh produce company signs agreement with Italian breeder CIV to plant new apple variety
IG International has clinched the rights to grow Desy – a new apple variety bred by Italian nursery consortium Consorzio Italiano Vivaisti (CIV) – in India.
IG International’s Tarun Arora and CIV’s Pier Filippo Tagliani signed the licensing agreement at Fruit Logistica, with the pair underlining the bright prospects for the variety in India.
Desy is a full colour red apple that’s ”crunchy, juicy and super sweet”, according to CIV. The variety is also characterised by its ‘grower friendly’ qualities, with trees that are easy to manage, excellent yield and high disease tolerance, the breeder added.
“Desy has a striking appearance with 90 per cent red colour and a yellow background,” explained Tagliani. “It has an attractive regular shape, and the flesh is very sweet; the Brix level is 16 degrees at harvest, going up to 18 degrees after storage. The flesh is firm, juicy and crunchy, and it has excellent shelf life.”
One of the key benefits of the variety from a growing perspective is its disease tolerance, with high resistance to apple scab and low susceptibility to powdery mildew, Tagliani added.
Arora told Fruitnet that IG is planting around 10ha of Desy in India as a trial, with plans to expand plantings to around 200ha in the coming years
“We are testing it and we have full confidence in the variety. I am pretty sure we’ll get complete results in a year or two. By 2026/27, once we’ve tested it ourselves, CIV will look at growing it with other farmers.”
Desy is the first international apple variety IG has introduced to India for local production, and Arora said the company had “complete confidence” in its attributes for both Indian consumers and growers.
“One of the great things about Desy is the full colour – it’s highly marketable with the beautiful wrap around red colour,” he said.
“It’s also one of the finest varieties in terms of disease resistance. And from what we’ve seen in the trials in Bolzano and southern Italy, it performs consistently across growing regions. It’s a one-pick apple, so this also reduces the cost for us to go ahead and harvest.
“Another thing we’ve seen with this apple is that despite the high Brix, it has great storage qualities. It’s able to last even if you do not put it into controlled atmosphere storage – it still offers 12-month consistent marketability.”
In addition to Italy and India, Desy is also being planted under license in Poland and Turkey.
