The UK’s largest bank of fruit species has received over £2 million of funding to continue to preserve and protect fruit for coming generations.
Defra has awarded the University of Reading a further five-year £2.2m contract, running to March 2024, to continue to maintain and curate the National Fruit Collection at Brogdale in Kent.
The collection is one of the largest fruit genetic resource collections in the world, with more than 4,000 varieties of fruit trees over 150 acres of farmland, and is part of an international programme to protect plant genetic resources for future generations. Varieties include apple, pear, plum, cherry, vine and cobnut cultivars.
Farming minister Robert Goodwill said: 'The National Fruit Collection is an immensely important genetic resource, supporting a programme of research to deepen our understanding of how crops and agricultural systems can be improved and safeguarded for the long term.
“By continuing to support genetic resource collections here in the UK, we are playing our part in a global effort to advance the productivity, sustainability and resilience of food crops worldwide.”
Dr Matthew Ordidge, the scientific curator of the National Fruit Collection at the University of Reading, added: “The National Fruit Collection is recognised both across the UK, and internationally as one of the most important collections of fruit crops in the world. It is a real honour for the University to continue in our role of curation, and we hope to continue to make material and data available to a wide range of users.”
The Reading scientists are also responsible for additional research, with funding from other sources, using the National Fruit Collection, with recent research allowing the comparison of the genetic diversity held in the collection with the collections held by others in Europe.
