The Belgian auctions have announced that the volume of strawberries supplied under their quality label Flandria is set to increase this year as the season gets underway this week and plans are revealed for strawberry research.

The earliest Belgian strawberries this season were harvested in February, but significant volumes of glasshouse-grown fruit are scheduled for this week and the main varieties will be Elsanta and Darselect, which between them will account for some 75 per cent of production.

Projects on variety renewal are ongoing across Belgium, but a number of these players have come together in a project funded by IWT, the institute for promotion of innovation through science and technology in Flanders, to develop a quality system for strawberry variety selection.

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