A new US strawberry variety shows every indication of taking the UK everbearer market by storm.
‘Albion’, from the University of California (UC) - which supports the largest breeding programme in the world and accounts for 60 percent of all varieties - is licensed, and royalties paid last year were over £2 billion.
The strawberry was replicated in the UK by Hargreaves Plants two years ago, and after being appointed by UC representatives through one of its European master agents, Eurosemillas, has already sold five million plants.
Rupert Hargreaves, commercial director, forecasts that a further eight million could be on the order book by next season.
At a presentation held at Ickham, Kent last week, the variety was given words of praise from Paul Mansfield, whose three farms are harvesting the variety under 185 acres of tunnels, making him the largest producer in the UK, and is already supplying Sainsbury’s among others.
Mansfield previously grew Camarillo, Flamenco, Diamante, Everest, Pearl and Opal.
But he told the audience: “We bought half a million Albion plants in 2006, and were so impressed we added a further 2.5 million this year.”
Yields have been up to one kilo on two year plants, and because over 95 percent of large regularly shaped fruit falls into the Class I category, it means that they have lower picking costs at around 50p per kg - 22 percent lower than most other varieties .
What has further impressed him, and Peter Czarnobaj, a fruit technologist for Sainsbury’s, has been disease resistance and taste, colour and shape. Tests which were carried out by Hargreaves against other varieties bought at retail multiples recorded a 9.8 Brix reading, even higher than Jubilee, which was also acknowledged as a very good fruit.
Mansfield currently represents about 12 percent of national production of Albion, and Rupert Hargreaves forecasts that the variety could eventually represent a third of the UK everbearer crop.
Looking to the future, there is promise of even greater things to come, according to Javier Cano, Eurosemillas’ general manager.
While Albion already accounts for half of California’s 35,000 acre production, the next generation promises to be larger, sweeter and continuing to show an increase in yields.
Emphasis is now on matching customers’ varying taste requirements, which are completely different in comparison to, for example, Japan and China with Europe.
Cano revealed that the average yield of plants in California between 1950 and 1997 had risen from 420g to 953g, and berry size had virtually doubled.
There are now numbered and named varieties which weigh in at 3.5 kg per plant over the year, which translates into the equivalent of 4,037 12lb crates a year, compared with the average figure of only 368 crates, when they were grown in selected Californian micro-climates.
The varieties are already in trials to be duplicated in Spain and the UK, and will hopefully become the next generation.
Research is still continuing on Albion to assess whether autumn or spring planting maximises yields, said Jane Fairlie, who is responsible for Hargreaves’ R&D. l
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